this is going to very much depend on how you are keeping track of your statuses during the lifespan of your process. if you use a dialog workflow to control the process, and use process manager for the UI (like ServiceDesk tickets are handled), then you can give view permissions to the end user for the process that is created for their hardware request. there's a lot more that goes into that than can probably be explained with text though. so technically yes, workflow has this built in, if you configure your process properly.
A very basic guide for this:
In the top level properties for your Workflow type project, set the ticket prefix on the Reporting tab:
Include a Dialog Workflow component and configure the Assignments tab and task info:
When this process runs, if everything is configured properly, you should have a ticket created in Process Manager. if you have given permissions to the submitter to view the ticket, they should be able to see it in a report in PM. Note in the screenshot of the workflow palette above that i'm setting permissions for the ticket in a separate model - this can be configured to assign permissions to whomever you want.
Note as well the "Set Process State/Status" components that are keeping process track along the way. This status will be visible to whomever has ticket view permissions in Process Manager.
hopefully this will help you, or at least get you pointed in the right direction.
-andrew