Asset management adopts holistic approach

Companies with comprehensive asset management programs use multiple programs of this type to improve daily performance and ensure the ongoing health and longevity of mission-critical equipment. Rationalizing data across all asset-related systems and databases is one strategy actively pursued by better performing companies.

By Staff June 1, 2006

Companies with comprehensive asset management programs use multiple programs of this type to improve daily performance and ensure the ongoing health and longevity of mission-critical equipment. Rationalizing data across all asset-related systems and databases is one strategy actively pursued by better performing companies. One-third of 156 manufacturers recently surveyed by The Aberdeen Group report they are improving interoperability and building data models to unify operational data.

With a holistic approach to asset management, best-in-class companies can better optimize plant and equipment performance and avoid unplanned downtime and unneeded maintenance, says Aberdeen.

Forward-thinking companies also are leveraging information contained in existing asset management systems to empower decision-makers. They are doing this 55% more frequently with Web-based performance analytic tools than poorer-performing competitors, according to Aberdeen. The company says best-in-class companies are extending core systems by leveraging emerging technologies, such as smart devices six times more frequently than industry average and “laggard organizations.”

There’s a strong link between OEE (overall equipment efficiency) performance and the formalization of processes, ability to share knowledge, and appropriate deployment of process automation and emerging technologies, the firm says.

For more information, see www.aberdeen.com and “Building Bridges to the Enterprise,” Control Engineering, May 2006, at www.controleng.com/archive .