In many industries there is a need to control the disposition of certain capital assets for various reasons. Assets may become surplus due to obsolescence or overproduction, they may need refurbishing with new parts, they may need environmentally unsound parts removed or replaced, and the like.
One method in the prior art of controlling the disposition of such assets is complete disposal, which may be accomplished through an outside source. In some instances, the obsolete product may contain subassemblies or parts which have value. For example, a computer manufacturer may introduce a new model mainframe computer and have in its stock a surplus of an older model mainframe. Although the older model mainframe is unsalable, it likely contains many usable parts, such as memory devices, display devices, and the like.
There is thus a need for managing various types of dispositions of surplus or obsolete assets. In the prior art, this may be accomplished by simply providing the surplus products to an outside source which disassembles the products. It has been found, however, that these vendors often inadvertently or fraudulently mismanage the disassembly and disposition of the surplus. For example, parts which should be kept out of the marketplace may be sold on a "black market."This results in fraudulent warranty claims to the original asset manufacturer, poor customer relations, and substantial losses in revenues to the manufacturer.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for the controlled disposition of assets which overcomes the problems of the prior art.