Asset Recovery Glossary
Appraisal: A written professional opinion of the value of a material, equipment, or other asset.
Asset: Any item that has financial or economic value.
Asset Recovery: The process of obtaining the highest value possible from idle or end of life assets through reuse, sales, donation, or disposal. Asset recovery can also be called "recovery," "investment recovery," or "resource recovery."
Auction: In asset recovery, an auction is competitive bidding event with a definite start time and end time in which buyers place bids in order to purchase an asset.
Auction Value: The price that a given asset will be able to bring at an auction.
Best Offer: The best offer that an organization receives for a given asset. Often the best offer will be the lowest price offer, but for some sales events, the best offer may include other factors like the disposal process, transportation, removal, etc.
Book Value: The value at which a material, equipment, or an asset is listed in the company's accounting records. The book value is often quite different than the market value or reuse value.
Certified Destruction: A process in which the entity disposing of an asset on behalf of the asset owner assures the asset owner in writing that they item is not longer operable and has been disposed of according to agreed upon procedures.
Cycle Time: The time that elapses starting from designation of a material or equipment as surplus and ending when the item is sold, redeployed or disposed of.
Depreciation: An accounting allowance made made periodically to record an expense and to decrease the value of an asset as a result of age, wear, or tear.
Disposal: The final process of getting rid of a material or equipment that can not be sold or redeployed.
Divestment: The process of taking an asset off of the companies books. This can be accomplished by selling, scrapping, disposing, or donating and item.
Donation: A gift made by an organization to a non-profit entity that removes the asset from the donating organization's books, provides tax benefits, and may provide publicity benefits to stakeholders.
End of Life: The period of time after an assets useful life, or the time when the asset can be used for productive purposes within the organization.
Fair Market Value: the price at which a reasonable buyer and a willing seller would agree upon to complete a sales transaction for an item.
FOB: FOB or Freight on Board is used to designate the point at which responsibility (and the transportation costs) for the goods transfers from the seller to the buyer. FOB will usually be followed by a geographic location, often a port.
Identification: The process of locating, describing, and categorizing materials and equipment and designating them as surplus for recovery purposes.
Idle: A designation for an asset that is currently not being used in a company's operations.
Investment Recovery: The process of maximizing the value of unused or end of life assets through effective redeployment or divestment. Investment recovery can also be called "asset recovery", "resource recovery", or just "recovery".
Material Transfer: The movement of material from one location in an organization to another. This can also be referred to as redeployment.
Outsourcing: the process of eliminating a business function internally and transferring the performance of an internal business function (core or non-core) to an outside vendor.
PCB: PCBs are also called polychlorinated biphenyl and are a hazardous chemical linked to many health problems. PCBs were banned since 1979 and were used in transformers, insulators, and other industrial equipment and materials.
Quantity: The number of items associated with a batch, grouping, or lot.
Redeployment: The process of moving an idle asset from one part of an organization to another in order to put it to productive use.
Recovery: The process of obtaining the highest value possible from idle or end of life assets through reuse, sales, donation, or disposal. Recovery can also be called "asset recovery," "investment recovery," or "resource recovery."
Recycling: The process of taking used, surplus, or abandoned materials and using these materials in the creation of new products or equipment.
Reduce: The process of lower the amount of resources used or consumed to perform a giving task.
Replacement Value: The amount that an organization would need to pay in order to obtain an asset to perform the tasks that the current asset is or was performing.
Residual Value: The remaining value of an asset after it has reached the end of its life.
Resource Recovery: The process of obtaining the greatest value available from surplus or unused assets using effective divestment or reuse. Resource recovery can also be called "asset recovery," "investment recovery," or just "recovery."
Reuse: the process of taking an asset or material that is idle or no longer used in one location in an organization and transferring it to another so that it may be deployed in a productive use.
Reverse Logistics: The process of managing goods and materials that are no longer wanted or equipment that is no longer needed for production. Often this will involve finding a way to reuse the material, selling the material, or disposing of the material. It can also involve moving the material back through the supply chain.
Salvage: an item that is at the end of its useful life and can not be reused or sold.
Salvage Value: The value that an asset has at the end of its useful life. This can be sometimes referred to as residual value.
Sale Price: The amount at which a buyer has purchased a given quantity of goods.
Scrap: materials or equipment left over from the production process. Unlike waste, scrap items have value and can be sold.
Scrap Vendor: A buyer of scrap items and materials.
Surplus: An item that an organization no longer uses for its operations.
Vendor: A buyer or reseller of equipment, materials, or scrap.
Waste: materials, equipment, or by products that an organization no longer needs or wishes to dispose of. Unlike scrap, waste has no financial value and may cost the organization money in order to dispose of it properly.