Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) offers a myriad of benefits to an organization, primarily an asset-heavy company. But did you know EAM software can help businesses get organized?
Intensified regulatory regimes are forcing infrastructure operators to increase efficiency and operational excellence. Implementing EAM not only helps contain operating costs but can also significantly improve productivity and asset performance through better organization. Of course, investing time and money to implement EAM software can tremendously reduce equipment downtime, as well as provide better processes to maintain and manage a company’s vital assets.
This article illustrates the primary organizational advantages of using EAM software and how it can help companies.
What Is EAM?
EAM is a revolutionary asset maintenance and general management solution that addresses the need for continuous monitoring of a company’s assets. Powered by state-of-the-art innovations, an EAM software solution makes sure that asset-intensive enterprises get a holistic view of their assets across all locations, facilities, business units, or departments. EAM software comes with an array of benefits, including speedy maintenance routines, easier contract management, better organization, simplified asset tracking, and much more.
Organizational Change Benefits
EAM systems can transform the way asset-intensive companies do business. It’s designed to offer a unified platform for managing physical assets across an organization. EAM solutions keep your most critical assets and resources performing at maximum efficiency, regardless of industry. EAM offers a broad range of robust features to manage, track and get insights into your asset performance and costs through the entire asset lifecycle.
EAM solutions serve every facet of your organization that has to do with asset management. It incorporates functions like investment strategies, portfolio planning, design & construction, maintenance, rehabilitation, replacement and disposal of assets.
Increased Visibility
Immediately, EAM software offers a company the right tools to organize its asset portfolio quicker and more efficiently. Simply put, this software enables enterprise firms to reduce the burden of paper handling. The problem with inefficient and paper-based systems is they only allow companies to capture limited information about their assets and how they manage them.
EAM, on the other hand, offers increased visibility of all company assets through effective reporting and insight, allowing a company to identify areas of improvement and excellent performance.
…EAM systems keep your most critical assets and company resources performing at maximum efficiency
With well-organized and easily accessible asset information, preventive maintenance (PM) can be scheduled so the company can more effectively assign and monitor their maintenance crews. Also, clear visibility and traceability enhance the company’s compliance and service level agreements (SLAs).
By realizing tangible performance, a company can drive real change. EAM, therefore, helps organizations identify problems faster, keep a tab on performance indicators and deal with issues before they arise.
Benefits Beyond Asset Management
The benefits of this comprehensively designed software go beyond essential asset management. It provides every employee, every department, and every location with a one-stop shop for all information about the company’s physical assets. This includes lifecycle costs, maintenance histories, energy usage, purchase orders, warranty catalogs, and audit records, to name a few.
All-in-One System
Use various applications in a unified EAM solution to manage contracts, purchase orders, and request for proposals (RFPs). Accounting can use it to handle MRO invoices and budgets. Materials managers can use it to manage inventory and storerooms/warehouses.
Integration Options
With system integrators, you can integrate EAM with building automation systems and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) to get real-time information about energy usage and the condition of assets across all units. Also, EAM can integrate with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to ensure current and precise financials. Business intelligence integration offers executives a holistic view of asset performance and costs.
How EAM Transforms Organizational Practices
From its benefits, to promoting an asset-driven environment, it’s clear that EAM can transform organizational practices. Here are several ways EAM systems can take your organizational practices to the next level.
From Reactive to Proactive Maintenance Practices
EAM is designed for a preventive approach. EAM software allows you to get on top of maintenance and asset management, and work toward a PM strategy. The system can prompt you when assets need maintenance and repairs. Once set up, the system can automatically generate work orders, purchase orders, RFPs and much more based on the schedules you’ve generated, thus enabling on time work order completion.
Go Mobile
Mobile technology is changing asset and cost management in a big way. The good thing is, for many EAM system, there’s a corresponding mobile app for iOS, Android and Windows operating systems to make maintenance and asset management on the go possible. Technicians can check repair histories, audit trails, access parts catalogs, implement new work orders, place purchase orders, and so forth. Everything can be done on a mobile platform, a transformation in organizational practices
Standardize Best Practices
With EAM, you can establish workflows and checklists to set up consistency and best practices in your organization. This can be highly beneficial, especially for condition monitoring, troubleshooting, accounting, and cost management.
Get Rid of Maintenance Backlog
One practice that can reduce productivity, increase operating costs and cause frequent downtime is a runaway maintenance backlog. It has crippled many organizations that could otherwise operate at maximum efficiency. With an EAM system in place, maintenance backlog can be a thing of the past.
EAM helps companies keep a balance between maintenance costs and resources, allowing them to clear the backlogged work. It also captures small hiccups that otherwise may have been overlooked, preventing the need for emergency maintenance and compliance issues.
Improve Health and Safety Practices
Robust health and safety practices are indispensable for the well-being of the workers, as well as the assets. Modern EAM systems come with powerful health and safety management tools. Acting as a central repository for health and safety information, the EAM facilitates inspection rounds and monitors everyone’s safety certification. This way, accidents and unplanned incidents can be a thing of the past.
Keep Up with Changing Technology
With constant updates in technology, asset-driven enterprise firms have to change the way they serve and operate to remain relevant in today’s world. For that, EAM software incorporates the latest technology trends. This way, the organization can use technology and take advantage of innovations to offer clients better services and more choices as well as eliminating business units from keeping inefficient and out of date processes.
Change Decision-Making Practices
Managing a top-notch and efficient asset-driven environment requires a myriad of business, operational and technical strategies. In fact, a firm that wants to find effective ways to save money and truly increase efficiency must know its operating costs and how it can improve upon them.
EAM software is a crucial resource to gain insights into your asset-driven operations and know how your facilities are performing, as well as what steps to follow to accomplish your company’s goals. In this way, an EAM software solution removes the guesswork out of making important organizational and operational decisions.
Realize Real ROI
Efficient and well-organized systems offer up to 60 percent reduction of paperwork. That signifies great improvement in maintenance turnaround times, increased work orders, reduced operating costs, and maximized revenue.
In addition, EAM systems eliminate the need for costly emergency repairs, increasing asset lifecycle and uptime through predictive maintenance, condition tracking, and preventative upkeep. Without preemptive inspections, companies can save money on fines and negative publicity. With more efficient and streamlined processes, they can save on administrative overhead
Efficient EAM solutions combined with appropriate business processes help organizations to refine their work processes, enhance working conditions, and spot areas for improvement. Thus, moving forward they can make insightful changes in the right areas - and with the right people - to run efficiently and smoothly all year long.
