Implementing enterprise asset management solutions
Functional Characteristics
To support the asst management business processes, an enterprise asset management solution
needs to provide functionality to support following business activities:
- Long term asset capital planning: additions,
improvements and decommissioning;
- Multi-year work program planning: preservation
and operations;
- Activity based costing;
- Asset inventory tracking: characteristics,
operating statistics and condition;
- Work and project management;
- Materials and services management.
With the proliferation of technology in the work place, workers expect to have access to this
information anywhere, anytime. This includes access at the job site, in the office, in the truck or
at home.
Not only must this information be accessible everywhere, but the information users also want to
view the information in many different ways. Field workers don't want a list of the assets under
the ground; they want maps and drawings showing where these assets are. Management doesn't
want to see all of the detailed work orders and individual activities; they want to see aggregated
information depicted in graphs that highlight the trends.
In summary, an enterprise asset management solution must collect and provide access to its
repository of information in a multitude of different fashions to satisfy the various users. The
various users include field workers, work planners and schedules, engineers, operations and
dispatch staff, management and executives. The different access methods include graphic,
tabular and spatial displays.
Integrated Information Technology
Information technology is a central tool required to facilitate effective asset management.
Technology advances continue to provide new ways of tracking assets and the associated work.
Historically, information technology software has been based on proprietary technologies.
Separate applications exist to support specific business needs. For example, project management
software supports asset construction, programmable logic controllers on pumps support asset
operations and maintenance management software supports asset maintenance.
As technology becomes more of a commodity, separate application software for each business
need does not make sense. The move in the technology market is towards integrated software
applications. This move towards integrated systems is already apparent in the Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) market. Vendors such as SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle and JD Edwards
provide fully integrated software for the core back office functions like accounting, purchasing,
accounts payable and accounts receivable.
The Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) vendors are moving in the same direction. For
example, SAP, Maximo and Indus provide software that can be fully integrated to the ERP.
According to the Aberdeen Group, the EAM and the ERP vendors are moving to component
technologies which will allow companies to package up the best software modules from each
vendor to meet the overall needs for asset management functionality.
Technology Directions
Overall a number of technology advances are facilitating the move to fully integrated systems for
asset management including:
- Internet/Intranets/Extranets. Wide area
networking is enabling information sharing across the organization and
across the supply chain. The Internet has driven the move to mass
distribution of information and the integration of business partners
processes.
- Software Standards. Technology companies are
developing standards and software for system integration and cross
company communications. These technologies include emerging standards
like XML and HTML. Companies such as WebMethods provide technology to
support cross integration of enterprise business applications.
- Software Componentization. The major ERP and
EAM vendors are moving to component software. Components are small
applications providing specific business functionality. For example, a
set of software components can be assembled to provide work management
functionality.
- Mobile and Wireless Technology. Standards such
as WAPI and the availability of network bandwidth are facilitating wide
spread use of mobile and wireless technology. This will allow field
staff to access information anywhere, anytime.
- Information Access Methods. Software vendors
are migrating from proprietary front-ends to browser based front-ends
for their applications. Wide spread use of other access methods are also
evident including map based access and graphical representation of data.
- Technology convergence. Geospatial software vendors are migrating away from
proprietary data repositories to standard relational databases such as Oracle an SQL*
Server. The development tools from these vendors are also incorporating the
emerging standard languages such as C++ and Java.
Implementation an enterprise asset management solution
The implementation of an enterprise asset management solution requires support from all levels
in the organization. The following items should be considered during its implementation:
- Focus on business processes outputs including
key performance indicators
- Consider both short and long term information
needs for decision making.
- Define and implement information and data
standards for all processes.
- Teach the technology but also educate the users
on how to use the information.
- Define clear accountability for assets and work
programs.
- Architect the overall technology solution.
- Select technology vendors based on the overall
technology architecture.
