AssetWise manages information in its database in an object-oriented way. Real life objects are identified with key identifiers; these are associated with a number of attributes or descriptors, providing more information about each object. The objects are then related to each other in hierarchical assemblies, or in one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many relationships, depending on the nature of the associated object.

Physical items are things that form part of a tangible system, either as single components, complete items or systems, or sub-sets of these. Such items are either procured, designed, fabricated, warehoused, assembled, distributed or maintained by the enterprise. In AssetWise, a physical item may be hardware, software or firmware, which is used, built, operated or maintained as part of the Enterprise process. The Item Manager plug-in is needed for the purpose of managing physical items, lists, and baselines.

Physical items may also be exposed in the Content pane as a result of a search for that type of AssetWise object. You can search by Description, Number and Approval status. The wildcard character, (%), can be used in any field. If all fields are blank and Status is set to "Any", the search returns all physical items that exist.

Many additional Topics may be appended to an item. For example, if the physical item's Class is "Component", then the Where Used topic appears and you can expand it to view all structures containing this component.