Asset Management Archives | �ۿ۴�ý

How to improve Maintenance Efficiency using an EAM system

�ۿ۴�ý — Thu, 13 May 2021 12:51:06 +0000

The main goal of maintenance is to increase equipment availability and minimize failure. The most common types of maintenance are Preventive Maintenance, Corrective Maintenance, and Emergency maintenance. Every maintenance includes a cost to it. i.e., price of the part/item replaces or repair, cost of the labor, service cost, etc.

Maintenance efficiency indicates the upkeep effort required to deliver required performance from the equipment. Keeping track of asset life cycle and maintenance history is extremely difficult without a dedicated system. , popularly known as EAM, is software system that helps manage the complete life cycle of assets/equipment.

With EAM, technology has given a better way of managing, monitoring, and maintaining assets throughout their lifecycle to extend asset lifespan, decrease costs and optimize the standard, efficiency and safety.

Critical applications in EAM to achieve maintenance efficiency

Work management
Contract management
Material management
Procurement management

With an efficient EAM system in place, all the aforesaid activities can be easily managed and automated to a such an extent that a it reduces manual intervention at critical times.

Asset management: During any maintenance activity, the Asset information such as Location, Parent, criticality, Manufacturer, installed date, custodians, spare parts, safety regulations, etc. are crucial to keep the downtime as low as possible. An will enable organization to maintain and manage such information in a centralized system that comes handy and optimizes maintenance activities. For example, based on the asset’s criticality, the scheduler can assign the maintenance job to ascertain the equipment is available sooner than expected.
Work management: Whether it’s preventive maintenance or corrective maintenance or emergency management maintenance team/Technicians must get the work execution details to fix assets in time. With the EAM system, the maintenance engineer has all information like SOP (standard operating procedure) from the manufacturer and safety procedure to operate. This information helps in planning and work execution better. Also, the maintenance engineer chooses materials, services required and estimates the value, which is vital in analyzing the maintenance cost of the asset.
Contract management: As an organization, they’re many contracts associated with vendors such as price contracts, purchase contracts, warranty contracts, etc. For a maintenance engineer it is crucial to know the warranty of an asset, to manage claims and track the warranty status of each asset/equipment at times of any failures. The EAM system will enable organization to automate invoices generated based on the frequency defined within the contracts reducing the manual workload of the maintenance engineer.
Material management: Material management is essential as this could increase stock value, An EAM with Reorder capabilities and periodical cycle stock check will help in the decrease in hand inventory and maximizes the item available to the maintenance team. In addition, the EAM acts a centralized repository of all material information available in stock across various warehouses and regions.
Procurement management: An efficient supply chain is an essential factor for achieving maintenance efficiency. Procurement applications in EAM provides insights about vendor quotations, technical qualifications, and helps procurement staff to choose the right vendor. The status of materials received, status of delivery and any damages can be conveyed to vendors automatically through emails and messages without any delay. Once the service items are received, accepted and approved by the maintenance engineer, the invoices are generated accordingly.

Other benefits of features of an efficient EAM system

Forecast, plan, and schedule maintenance
Mobile inspection and mobile execution
On-Demand reports and scheduled reports
Track Key performance indicators
Identity and review Failure hierarchy

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Improve Asset Monitoring with EAM Mobile Applications

�ۿ۴�ý — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 06:44:03 +0000

Real-time is vital for asset-intensive industries such as Oil & Gas, Mining, Power, Energy, Utilities, Manufacturing, Pharma and Chemicals. The effective asset management can be achieved when your CMMS or EAM systems keep track of the assets and notify the team about asset criticality on demand.

In order to tackle this, there are a variety of EAM Mobile applications available that enables plant maintenance executives to monitor assets on the go. But one should be careful before selecting the right mobile application for EAM, otherwise, the investment made may not yield the desired result. Below are few key points to be considered before going for a mobile application.

What business functions should move into a mobile application?

Functions which require real-time asset monitoring and management must be identified and prioritized since it is not practical to move all business functions of an EAM into mobile. At the first, Service engineers, plant maintenance staff, and plant operations team at the production site who are working remotely, maintenance schedulers should get all functions to access, capture and manage everyday operations. Work order management, inventory status check, and asset performance management are few key functions required to be in the mobile.

Is it simple to use?

Mobile application will be used by engineers to perform plant maintenance on the field or in a remote production site with extreme conditions such as mines, chiller plants, etc. They should be able to record/update the data on the field and hence the mobile application should provide a simple and faster experience for maintenance technicians. Another important factor is the selection of the device and the sturdiness. The device should withstand the extreme temperatures and high drops.

How secure is your application?

The need for data security is high due to backward integration to organization’s ERP, CMMS and EAM systems. Developers must ensure all transactions are encrypted to avoid malware that challenges the safety of the organization’s data. The encryption should provide for tracing back messages, notifications and any actions either at the end user or server level. The mobile application should also contain GPS tracking to trace the lost device or misuse.

Possible for Online Application Updates?

Mobile application development is not a one-time deal but an ongoing activity. Mobile platforms and trends change quickly, and applications need to be ready to change with them. Make sure the application is planned for updates and future ready.

How rugged is the device and the platform?

Another tough job is device selection, mostly the maintenance engineers work in harsh environments such as mines, chiller plants, smelters, thermal plants, etc and electronic devices fail at such extreme conditions hence the offshore device must be sturdy to operate.

Can it scan bar codes and view document?

The solution must be capable of reading bar codes which will help technicians to quickly report any anomalies and eliminates the errors. It is also good to have advanced features like geo-tagging which will identify the functional location of the asset and quite useful in auditing and tracking of equipment. Document viewing is also important for technicians when fixing assets where SOP (Standard operating procedures) are stored in .pdf.

Can it perform tasks in offline Mode without data loss?

Most mobile application requires an internet connection for the functioning of the app. But in contrast, EAM users work in remote areas where internet connectivity is not consistent. Consider a transmission and distribution industry where technicians/users perform transmission lines inspection in very remote areas and sometimes inside mines. The mobile solution should have an online mode and offline mode. When online data is synchronized with the system an offline user can perform his tasks/duties in without loss of data and synchronized when the device comes online.

Do you monitor assets in real-time? Learn more from our Asset Management experts.

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Why Asset data integrity is important?

�ۿ۴�ý — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 05:42:02 +0000

Plant asset data should be genuine, complete, trustworthy and should provide relevant information. Data integrity refers to data accuracy that provides usable, reliable information for business decision making. Maintaining asset data integrity is a complex process existing at both task and strategic business levels. Good data helps for proper analysis, creation of information and right decision. Also, the data should be readily available.

The major changes in the plant that affect the data integrity are operational changes that are implemented and Process changes. Changes in machine parameter settings, the addition of data into the system like work order history, predictive/preventive maintenance results, all these create new data or replace the existing data. Asset data is dynamic and it is important to understand the process that address data integrity at all levels. How can we expect accurate business decisions if the information received is inaccurate, out of date due to failure to keep up with the dynamic changes that impact the assets? To have an accurate and timeliness in data, you need to pay careful attention to the assets’ lifecycle and the data that is changed during the assets’ life cycle.

Data accuracy leads to effective work, increased reliability, improved safety, and environmental performance. All these aspects of the business are directly linked to the profitability of the organisation. Maintaining data integrity is not just the responsibility of stores or maintenance supervisor. It is a shared responsibility throughout all executive levels including the CEO.

Organization wide awareness to be created on the value of maintaining accurate data and the downside of not maintaining it is understood, there needs to be something done about it.

Need to make the data integrity -whether entry of new asset or upgrading existing data -a part of every project and every work initiative. This approach makes the data integrity everyone’s job. To have optimum data integrity, the roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined, and the overriding data process is clearly mapped. A robust data management process ensures data integrity and continually demonstrates the value of data integrity.

What are the key elements to ensure data integrity

Data modelling frame work
and architecture
Robust processes with people accountability
system

Our MDM services ensure data integrity of the data architecture.

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It’s time to Improve your Asset Lifecycle with EAM

�ۿ۴�ý — Wed, 15 May 2019 07:55:36 +0000

Today’s business world is posed by the high pressure of increasing overall efficiency and cost optimization, especially the asset-intensive organizations, as they are challenged to balance between asset cost, risk, and performance. Usage of system to maximize the performance and economic value of your complex asset is the key to align with the overall business strategy.

Traditionally, plant and asset operations are cost centers trapped in the paradigm of continued investment on fixed assets. Powerful EAM systems are built with a focus on optimization methods to improve maintenance costs and life-cycle costs, thereby increasing the asset uptime and reducing inventory costs.

What do you achieve from Improved Asset Lifecyle:

Predictive analysis: Identifying and addressing asset performance issues before they become problems. As the word goes “Prevention is better than cure” it is imperative for plant engineers to recognize asset abnormalities and early signs of equipment failures.
Visualize asset performance: Capture insights of actual and expected asset performance including detailed information on asset operating conditions, uptime, operating modes, and availability.
Improved OEE:The higher Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is influenced by Availability, Performance, and Quality of assets deployed at the plant. Predictive analysis & real-time performance monitoring will enable better OEE to eliminate bottlenecks in plant operations and improve the efficiency of production planning.
Work order efficiency: Real-time performance analysis will enable proactive initiative to generate work orders and will potentially avoid plant outages. This will reduce unexpected asset failure and free the plant engineers for other planned maintenance activities.
Cost-effective procurement: An effective will directly influence the procurement patterns, inventory carrying costs and vendor negotiations.

How does EAM impact various Industries?

Each industry variant has its own set of challenges. While the underlying business objective remains unchanged – reduction in asset downtime and increase in the bottom line. Here are a few industry specific benefits:

Industry	Benefit
Manufacturing	Insights into the health of machine components and manage the maintenance, repair, and classify the possible failures which increases OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) and overhaul of (MRO) activities.
Oil and Gas & Mining	Asset-intensive process industry requires real-time monitoring of assets for capturing incident investigation and track the action to be performed for reliable plant performance.
Medical and Life sciences	Automates work management, enables efficient inspection process, supports audit trails and enhances accurate document control
Transportation and logistics	Reduces unplanned road calls, on-demand compliance documentation like condition, road tax, insurance, etc which is key while scheduling vehicle to the drivers. Precise tracking enhances overall customer satisfaction.

Didn’t find your industry here? Learn more from our Asset Management experts about optimizing asset performance, reducing unplanned asset downtime and reducing maintenance costs. Write to us at info@enventure.com.

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Impact of DATA QUALITY on efficient Asset Management

�ۿ۴�ý — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 07:20:53 +0000

Effective asset management at any plant involves multiple functions and is a process that begins even before the plant begins operations and continues even through the decommissioning process. In addition to dealing with active plant demands, requires companies to keep future plant requirements in mind, while also addressing historical needs. Asset-intensive organizations invest billions of dollars in various ERP, EAM, and CMMS systems – such as IBM Maximo, SAP PM, Oracle EAM, Infor EAM, and others – to meet their plant maintenance and reliability goals. Although the tools are expected to make much more efficient, the end goal is often not met, due to inefficiencies in the data backbone that drives these systems. The lack of good quality data often leads to decisions made on the basis of judgment rather than being data driven. This can lead to less effective strategic business decisions, increased costs, customer dissatisfaction, and loss of revenue. In some cases, it could also lead to catastrophic consequences such as a sudden breakdown of critical assets which leads to plant shutdown. The crux of the issue is that processes, as well as analytics, depend heavily on the data within the system, which includes details of the assets, the MRO materials/spares associated with the assets, as well as the transactional data. When these data points are flawed, it can throw the entire system out of sync, leading to poor decisions making capabilities, wrong analytics, and an overall high-risk high-cost environment. Data needs to be accurate, complete, and completely relevant, otherwise it often does more harm than good. Accurate data quality impacts various aspects of the business, such as: Maintenance Strategy: Accurate spare parts data ensures faster retrieval of parts and quick execution of work orders generated, which leads to a considerable reduction in MTTR (Mean Time to Repair). Inaccurate asset data results in incomplete maintenance plans causing extreme overutilization of skilled resources, apart from pushing up costs and increasing downtimes due to maintenance activities. Organizations often do not have good quality asset BOMs available inside the EAM / CMMS systems, which makes it very difficult to ensure availability of critical spares, affecting plant maintenance activities. Asset Availability & Plant reliability: Accurate asset data helps reduce the number of stock-out related downtimes. An error in parts data can lead to equipment downtime, bringing down the entire production line. Not only would these hamper the efficiency of manufacturing plants, but also cause considerable delays in the entire value creation chain and ultimately affect profitability. Spare Parts inventory: Optimized spare parts inventory helps reduce maverick purchases, bring down carrying and procurement costs. Surplus, obsolete and duplicates inventory parts need to be cleaned up and eliminated, to achieve optimal inventory levels. Clean spares data is also crucial for good SPIR records (Spare Parts Interchangeability Record). Engineering & Planning: Analyzing life-cycle costs of equipment is the key to decide which assets to buy maintain or retire, considering total cost of ownership over the asset’s lifetime. When evaluating investment alternatives, the right data about spare parts consumption, asset failure and maintenance schedules help the engineering and maintenance teams to conduct an FMEA with Criticality Analysis & Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) to improve the reliability of assets and to plan predictive maintenance. Spend Analytics: The direct cost savings opportunities lie in managing risks and optimizing the organization’s buying power. The accurate data inside EAM / CMMS systems help analyze spend by commodity or category, spend by transactions, total spend on a particular asset, spend by each function, spend on expediting spare parts, etc. This data provides insights into the overall spend and helps identify cost savings opportunities, streamline maintenance and procurement process. With two decades of experience in for multiple industries, �ۿ۴�ý has seen companies make large investments in CMMS / EAM systems. But they end up loading legacy data into these systems – data that was inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant. This often happens due to lack of visibility into how much the data quality affects the ROI on the system investment.

It doesn’t matter at what stage you are – whether you are considering a new CMMS/EAM system or struggling to get value from an implementation you did a while ago – talk to one of our Consultants today to see how you can enhance your organization’s asset management efficiency. We believe in ‘Efficient Asset Performance’ and not just ‘Asset Management’.

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Manufacturing Bill of Materials

�ۿ۴�ý — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 05:41:51 +0000

A list of components, raw materials or assemblies required to complete the end product is known as the . BOM is classified into different categories, such as Engineering Bill of Materials, Sales Bill of Materials, Service Bill of Materials and Manufacturing Bill of Materials. The Manufacturing Bill of Materials, known as Manufacturing BOM or MBOM, consists of the list of all the parts and assemblies, including the packaging materials like the coloured boxes. It also incorporates the documentation included, such as the CDs and guides. Everything, that has been used at some or the other point of the manufacturing process has to be mentioned in the Manufacturing BOM. The liquid glue or tape also, if used, is mentioned under the Manufacturing Bill of Materials.

The contents of the Manufacturing Bill of Materials have to be accurate and in detail as much as possible. This helps the manufacturer or the retailer to take decisions on how to make the product reach the customer, cost effectively and efficiently. It also helps in saving much time. The details included in the Manufacturing Bill of Materials helps in other business related solutions such as Materials Resource Planning (MRP), Enterprise Resource Planning and Manufacturing Execution System (MES).

The Manufacturing Bill of Materials is often compared with the Process Plan since the content of both includes the information regarding the manufacturing process. Though similar to an extent, the Manufacturing Bill of Materials concentrates more on the product, while the Process Plan, as the name suggests, focuses on the process.

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How BOM scrubbing could help reduce your system design costs

�ۿ۴�ý — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:17:24 +0000

Around 80% of a product’s budget is decided at the engineering BOM stage – i.e. in early development. Nowadays it is common for mechanical and electrical engineering companies to use CAD drafting tools and 2D to 3D modeling applications to get new system designs into production faster. However, BOM management is equally important.

Your plan should include adequate resources for filing and retrieval of all engineering BOMs. This can be done easily with specialist BOM management software. Depending on the system installed, you can make and record BOM changes, create assembly reports, and BOM scrubs archived data.

You can also use BOM software as a component cross-reference tool to check which components have been used in previous projects. This can cut costs enormously, avoiding the need to build parts from scratch.

A mere 8% of the budget for a new product is spent during the design phase. However, that design has already determined 80% of all future spending, 60% of it at the creative concept phase. An ill-thought creative concept idea can be perilous to profits once you get to the manufacturing stage – not through the design itself, which may be brilliant, but through the costs incurred during the product lifecycle. However cutting-edge a new bag-less vacuum cleaner or hybrid auto is, it’s no use if you have to price it out of reach of the consumer market in order to break even.

Understanding the importance of things like regular BOM scrubbing is essential to modern engineering. We at �ۿ۴�ý Technologies are experts in the fields of mechanical design and high-tech component engineering, with tailored to your exact requirements.

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Cutting System Design Costs Through Intelligent BOM Management

�ۿ۴�ý — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:42:06 +0000

Whether you are a mechanical engineer or a VLSI designer, most engineering costs arise early in development. However keen you are to get your cutting-edge hardware design into production, you need to ensure it will pay for itself in production. Intelligent system design begins with the product structure. This is a hierarchical cataloguing of all the product elements; a precursor to the engineering BOM (bill of materials). In PCB design, CAD drawing tools are employed from the start. In mechanical engineering, mechanical CAD software is also the norm, although early concept sketches may be done by hand. The engineer begins with drafting out the structure of the product, and identifying the main systems and components. For each system part, consideration must be given to standard components already used by the company, or custom-built parts used in other projects, which may serve the necessary purpose. Not until these avenues are exhausted should you look at creating new parts. The engineering BOM is compiled once the product structure has evolved to a form that will support manufacturing, taking the form of a detailed parts list supported by CAD drawings. BOM management goes hand-in-hand with environmental compliance and obsolescence management. Effective component cross-reference strategies should be in place to guard against, for example, parts becoming unavailable due to supplier shut-down or a change in REACH regulations. We at �ۿ۴�ý Technologies realize it’s tempting to cut corners in BOM management, resulting in heavy costs further along the line. We offer a full range of BOM, obsolescence management and value engineering services, to enable your new products to have maximum impact at minimum expense.

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The link between thermal analysis and obsolescence management

�ۿ۴�ý — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:38:03 +0000

Whether you are involved in mechanical engineering or firmware development, a testing “laboratory” is an important part of project management. Depending on the system design, you will need to consider such things as humidity, vibration, and electromagnetic and temperature effects. We at �ۿ۴�ý Technologies are experts in design testing, using specialized tools like CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and thermal analysis software. A comprehensive engineering is at the heart of system development. Naturally, this will undergo many changes as testing continues. If your company employs cost reduction analysts, they must be aware of the importance of obsolescence to BOM management. It’s very short-sighted to build a BOM based on good thermal analysis results and low component costs alone. Any testing software you use should probe for the best components to match your needs. However, this is no use unless your enterprise data management system is up-to-date on areas like component availability and reliable second sources. This is the crux of obsolescence management – ensuring components are available throughout the entire product lifecycle, and are easy to track down. Rare, hard-to-find electronic components are fine for one-off hardware designs in scientific research, but they rarely work in the commercial field. If you work in an area where long lifecycles are the norm – for example the aerospace industry – then it’s possible to find distributors specializing in obsolete components. However, it’s critical the components can be trusted, and haven’t simply been recycled from defunct equipment. Repackaged, these are hard to tell from new components, but may fail in use due to faults like “tin whisker” development. Importantly, obsolete semiconductors may not pass RoHS/WEEE regulations.

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Power Systems Manufacturer renews Component Lifecycle Maintenance contract with �ۿ۴�ý

�ۿ۴�ý — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:23:27 +0000

�ۿ۴�ý Technology Services, a leading engineering services provider to global corporations, has been awarded the component life cycle management contract for the 3rd consecutive year by a leading Power Systems Manufacturer in the USA. Faced with surprise obsolescence notices, the customer needed a robust process to gain control over the component obsolescence management process. As part of this engagement, �ۿ۴�ý will be ensuring that all components in the customer’s Bills of Material are tracked for life cycle changes and notifications are provided to the customer wherever a part change occurs. The customer had earlier used multiple database subscriptions to monitor PCNs and manage life cycle issues, but they had been facing obsolescence issues that came up suddenly during the manufacturing stage, because the database coverage was not comprehensive. The project was first awarded to �ۿ۴�ý, based on a trial, where the customer tested the service on a few BOMs and found the service to be proactive and comprehensive, making is a far superior choice compared to other options in the market. �ۿ۴�ý has implemented a customized obsolescence management solution, which covers all types of components, including off-the-shelf electronic parts, mechanical parts and custom parts, to ensure maximum coverage from an obsolescence management perspective. “Rather than providing a consolidation of Product Change Notices (PCNs) �ۿ۴�ý services provide actionable reports, highlighting components which are approaching obsolescence with suggested risk mitigation strategies. Our impact analysis reports are very useful to customers, as it become the focal starting point for their action plan. Additionally, the alternate part comparison reports help a customer to confidently decide whether the suggested cross reference is a good fit to use in their product” said Suresh Urs, Head- Delivery at �ۿ۴�ý. “The quality of service and coverage of BOM provided by �ۿ۴�ý has resulted in the customer renewing the contract for the third consecutive year with us and we appreciate their trust in our services” added Mr. Urs. �ۿ۴�ý has been providing component life cycle management services for more than a decade now. The component engineering division has customized services for obsolescence management, BOM cleansing, Component database management, Cost reduction, Second sourcing and Environmental Compliance.

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