Enterprise Asset Management or EAM is an amalgamation of systems, services, and software used to control and maintain an organization’s operational equipment and assets. The objective of EAM is to optimize the quality and use of assets with at most productivity and cost-effectiveness.
While many people have a narrow view of asset management, the EAM concept is pretty broad. You may need to learn more about enterprise asset management to understand that it entails asset maintenance, work management, supply chain management, and planning and scheduling. Besides, EAM also involves environmental, health, and safety initiatives.
Importance of Enterprise Asset Management
Enterprise asset management comes in handy in assessing, tracking, optimizing, and managing the quality and reliability of assets. Many organizations are asset-intensive, with hundreds or thousands of assets and equipment that can be difficult to control without a centralized asset management system.
EAM best practices come in handy in controlling and managing your assets in the following ways;
- Centralize Asset Information- With an integrated computerized maintenance management system or CMMS, managers have all the information about the location of all the assets in the organization. A centralized system also has information on the asset’s requirements, the responsible person, and related timelines. Centralization automates workflows by making all the information accessible and auditable.
- Provide a Better Monitoring System- A good EAM solution will give you an upper hand in monitoring your assets and equipment. The right solutions use AI-powered remote monitors that provide actionable insights into current and expected asset conditions. It aggregates asset data across all the enterprise’s information silos, allowing accurate alerts and better decision-making.
- Maximize Asset Utilization- EAM uses automated devices to collect and compile asset data. Thus, you can leverage the historical and real-time asset data to monitor physical assets’ availability, usability, and reliability. The data also helps in diagnosing asset problems to extend their lifespan and usability.
- Manage Aging Assets– All organizations have assets of different ages. And as always the case, most older assets, and equipment have lower productivity and are prone to issues. With EAM, you can use informed maintenance strategies to extend their lifespan and maximize return on investment.
- Consolidate Operational Applications– Another advantage of enterprise asset management is to help establish one technology system for managing all types of assets in the organization. It unifies and standardizes all the processes across the enterprise, making it easy to assess and improve an organization’s operations based on asset performance.
- Resolve Problems Before They Happen– AEM solutions are your number one way to stay productive. It does not focus only on addressing issues. Instead, enterprise asset management systems also work towards preventing and mitigating the onset of problems. The ability of these systems to preempt issues ensures an uninterrupted flow of production.
All modern businesses should consider enterprise asset management systems to boost agility, growth, and production. The benefits of EAM guarantee exceptional ROI, particularly for large organizations and businesses. While many managers confuse EAM and CMMS, the latter is but one aspect of enterprise asset management.