Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Hyderabad runs a large base of plant and IT equipment, much of it covered by Annual Maintenance Contracts (AMC) held with external vendors. Tracking which asset sits under which contract, when its next preventive maintenance falls due, and whether the vendor actually turned up and did the work is difficult to do reliably by hand.
POXO deployed a Plant Maintenance & Asset Management System that joins the two halves of the problem: a web application that holds every asset and AMC contract, and an RFID handheld application that engineers and auditors use on the shop floor. Preventive maintenance schedules are generated automatically, service events are recorded against a scanned RFID tag with photographic proof, and the whole system runs on HAL’s own on-premise server.
The Challenge
AMC administration at a facility of this size involves far more moving parts than a simple asset register. Each contract covers a defined set of equipment, runs on its own maintenance cadence, and has a responsible officer accountable for making sure the work happens.
Managed manually, this creates several recurring problems:
- Missed maintenance windows. A preventive maintenance visit that is due but never scheduled passes silently, with nothing in the record to show it was missed.
- No proof of service. Once a vendor signs a paper job sheet, there is little to confirm what was actually done to which machine, or when.
- Contract-to-asset ambiguity. Identifying which AMC covers a particular machine, and whether that contract is still valid, means cross-checking purchase orders by hand.
- Slow physical audits. Verifying that every asset on the books is still physically present means a room-by-room walk with a printed checklist.
- Scattered master data. Models, manufacturers, suppliers, vendors, locations, and departments all live in separate files, so the same asset is described differently in different places.
The Solution
POXO built the system in two connected parts, each matched to where the work actually happens — the office and the shop floor.
Web Application (Plant Maintenance & Asset Management)
Hosted on HAL’s own on-premise server, this is the system of record. It holds the asset master, the AMC contracts, the maintenance schedule, the audit history, and all reference master data. Access is governed by role permissions, set per role and per module across create, read, update, and delete.
Handheld Application (HHT)
An Android application that runs on rugged UHF RFID handheld terminals, including the MT93 Handheld Terminal. It requires Android 8.0 or higher, an integrated UHF RFID module, and a camera. Engineers and auditors use it to identify assets, map RFID tags, record maintenance, run audits, and physically locate equipment. It operates offline in areas with no network coverage and synchronises when connectivity returns.
Hardware
Every plant and IT asset carries a UHF RFID tag, giving each machine a permanent digital identity that a handheld reader picks up in seconds. A location record can also hold the IP address of a fixed RFID reader installed there, which lets the system detect asset check-in and check-out at that location automatically.
How the System Works
Asset and AMC Registration
Assets are registered individually or imported in bulk from a validated Excel template, with equipment ID, RFID number, serial number, model, manufacturer, location, supplier, purchase cost, warranty period, and annual depreciation. Invoices, datasheets, and manuals attach directly to the asset record.
An AMC contract is then created against its purchase order number, with the covered assets multi-selected from the asset master, the servicing vendor, the contract validity window, the contract cost, and the responsible officer.
Automatic Maintenance Scheduling
This is the core of the system. When an AMC is created with a maintenance frequency — monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annually — the application automatically generates every maintenance period for the full life of the contract. No one has to build or maintain a schedule by hand.
Each contract also carries a Notification Days Before value, typically seven days. When a maintenance period enters that window, the system raises an AMC Maintenance Pending notification and emails the responsible officer, quoting the PO number and the due date. Contracts marked inactive stop raising notifications.
Maintenance Recording in the Field
A service engineer scans the machine’s RFID tag on the handheld and records the service event against that exact asset — technician details, service date, maintenance type, and free-text remarks, along with a photograph of the equipment taken at the time of service and any service report document.
Every maintenance period therefore carries its own evidence trail: the scheduled window, the date work was actually performed, who performed it, what they noted, and a picture of the machine.
RFID Audits
Auditors select the equipment for an audit cycle in the web application, set the audit date, auditor, and remarks, and the audit is pushed to the field auditor’s handheld. The auditor then walks the area scanning RFID tags in bulk, and the application reconciles what it finds against what the audit expects, reporting live counts of total, found, and missing assets.
Each audited asset closes as Confirmed when scanned or stays Pending when it cannot be located, so follow-up is directed only at genuine exceptions.
Locating a Specific Asset
When an asset shows up as missing, the handheld’s proximity finder searches by RFID number, serial number, or asset details and displays live RSSI signal strength, which rises as the operator moves closer to the tag. This turns a search of a large plant floor into a guided walk.
Dashboard and Reporting
The dashboard answers the maintenance questions management actually asks, as six tiles:
| Tile | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Total Assets Under AMC | Assets currently covered by an active contract |
| Total AMC | Active AMC contracts in the system |
| Last Month – PM Completed | Preventive maintenance jobs completed last month |
| Last Month – PM Missed | Maintenance windows that closed without service |
| This Month – PM Completed | Preventive maintenance completed so far this month |
| This Month – PM Pending | Open jobs still due this month |
Beneath that sit the reports. Audit Logs list each audit cycle with its total, found, and not-found counts, drilling down to per-asset status. The Maintenance Report lists every AMC and drills into the per-period maintenance log for each asset on that contract, where each period is marked DONE, MISSED, or UPCOMING and carries its service photograph and document. A Location Report sits alongside them. All grids filter per column and export to Excel.
Master Data Management
Dedicated master modules keep every reference list consistent across the system: models with end-of-life periods, equipment types with minimum stock thresholds, manufacturers with support contacts, suppliers, locations with sub-locations and an optional RFID reader IP, AMC vendors with two-level escalation contacts, departments, asset lifecycle statuses, and role permissions.
Implementation and Integration
The system is brought up in a fixed order, because each stage depends on the one before it.
Master data comes first — models, equipment types, manufacturers, suppliers, locations, AMC vendors, departments, and statuses — so that every asset created afterwards draws from consistent reference lists. Assets are then tagged and bulk-imported, and each physical tag is linked to its asset record through the handheld’s mapping module.
Live AMC contracts are entered against their purchase orders, which generates the full forward maintenance schedule in one step. Handheld terminals are pointed at the on-premise server through a single IP configuration, and role permissions are set so each user group reaches only its own modules.
From that point the handheld and web applications communicate over the internal network, so field scans, service records, and audit results reflect on the central system without manual data entry.
The Impact
- Preventive maintenance is tracked, not remembered. Schedules generate automatically from the contract and alert the responsible officer before each window, and any window that closes without service is recorded as MISSED rather than disappearing.
- Vendor work is evidenced. Each service event is tied to a scanned asset, a date, a named engineer, a photograph, and a service document — a verifiable record for AMC review and payment.
- Audits run as a walkthrough. Bulk RFID scanning replaces printed checklists, and reconciliation into found and missing is automatic.
- Missing assets get found. The proximity finder locates equipment by signal strength instead of by memory.
- Field work continues without network. The handheld operates offline across plant areas with no coverage and syncs afterwards.
- Data stays in-house. The system runs entirely on HAL’s own on-premise server, with no external cloud dependency.
Conclusion
This deployment shows how AMC administration becomes reliable once the contract, the asset, and the service event are joined by a single scan. The schedule comes from the contract automatically, the proof comes from the field, and the dashboard shows management where compliance stands in the current month without anyone compiling a report.
For a defence and aerospace organisation, the fact that all of it runs on internal infrastructure matters as much as the functionality. It is the same approach POXO has taken on asset tracking deployments for ONGC Vadodara and DRDO/IRDE Dehradun.
Managing AMC contracts and plant assets across a large facility? Explore POXO’s asset management solution and field service management, or talk to our team.