Asset Performance Management (APM) is the practice of tracking the use and condition of fixed assets throughout all company locations to optimize their efficiency and effectiveness. APM processes are critical to asset-intensive organizations where asset idleness and degradation threatens business goals and poor asset maintenance jeopardizes environmental, health & safety compliance. Additionally, underperforming assets contribute to unplanned downtime which is often vastly more expensive than the alternative plan of regularly scheduled maintenance, some reports warn it could be up to 10 times more costly.
To combat this and reduce total cost of ownership, many companies have turned to Asset Performance Management software. Asset Performance Management software approaches optimizing asset lifecycle performance using a data-driven methodology. Collecting data, interpreting, optimizing, and visualizing are basic features, with more sophisticated APM applications able to predict and prescribe courses of actions based on current conditions of the asset (real-world condition at the moment).
The best APM apps will offer prognostic features, which anticipate if, when, and how the asset/machine/component will fail, and then prescribing a plan of maintenance before the critical failure. Data variables that contribute to prognostic software can be exceptionally detailed, such examples can include the monitoring of bearings, gearboxes, tires, electrical load, vibrations, road conditions, etc. This translates, for example, in understanding which vehicles within a fleet are undergoing more stress and in need of sooner maintenance.
Asset Performance Management software provides features for tracking fixed assets and their performance to optimize utilization. To be considered an APM, the package must include features that consolidate fixed asset data, track performance using KPIs, identify trends and risks, suggest improvements, and track financials.
Asset performance management software connects disparate data sources and leverages analytics to turn data into insights. Using data management, pattern recognition, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, APM packages can look across multiple sites, finding familiar patterns, and suggest optimizations accordingly.
These features are incredibly powerful for efficiency and optimization, with Digital Twin modeling, a new approach and technology for modeling real-world objects with a virtual representation, raises the bar. With Digital Twins, assets can be modeled, put under stress tests, and detect even hyper-subtle opportunities of failures that potentially could save high-value assets, or assets far from reach such as spacecraft or submersibles.
Computerized maintenance management systems (CMMSs) are used by small and medium companies that need to manage assets and equipment. CMMSs help track and optimize the use of assets and their maintenance. Tracking can cover multiple stages of the product's useful life from acquisition to disposal. CMMS features are also found in enterprise asset management (EAM) systems, but EAMs deliver advanced features, including Automation and AI techniques, for complex organizations in asset-intensive industries like manufacturing, government, energy, mining, or construction.
Asset performance management (APM) software is specifically designed to optimize the use of fixed assets by deploying more powerful analytics associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI). APM functionality is often included in EAM packages, making them the most robust solutions for tracking and optimizing assets.
Asset Performance Management software benefits asset-intensive organizations, so they can achieve operational efficiency and ultimately improve profitability. To achieve this, APM has several key benefits:
Successful asset performance management reduces unplanned downtime, decreases maintenance costs, and mitigates environment, health, and safety (EH&S) risks. By leveraging data that enterprise assets automatically generate, APM systems can identify ineffective processes, and direct worker and manager efforts towards process improvements. Systems can target maintenance tasks for specific assets and times displayed on convenient digital dashboards and reclaim the many wasted dollars and man hours lost to miscommunications, errors, and disconnects. Likewise, thanks to automated digital scrutiny of historic asset maintenance records, many regulatory and compliance obligations can be systematically handled, reducing costly risks.
Asset performance management is the set of practices a company undertakes to improve company-wide asset usage while reducing costs. Companies can implement any number of approaches based on their resources. The following are some of the strategic approaches that best-in-class organizations have found have led to their successes.
Standards and best practices surrounding asset performance management are rapidly developing within many industries. The following five considerations can guide organizations in succeeding implementing asset performance management practices.
Asset Performance Management software approaches optimizing asset lifecycle performance using a data-driven methodology. Collecting data, interpreting, optimizing, and visualizing are basic features, with more sophisticated APM applications able to predict and prescribe courses of actions based on current conditions of the asset (real-world condition at the moment).
The best APM apps will offer prognostic features, which anticipate if, when, and how the asset/machine/component will fail, and then prescribing a plan of maintenance before the critical failure. Data variables that contribute to prognostic software can be exceptionally detailed, such examples can include the monitoring of bearings, gearboxes, tires, electrical load, vibrations, road conditions, etc. This translates, for example, in understanding which vehicles within a fleet are undergoing more stress and in need of sooner maintenance.
For software to be considered an asset performance management solution it must have the following functionality: