Effectively identify opportunities to enhance machine and production reliability while minimizing maintenance cost.
In today's dynamic and complex business environment, an effective asset management strategy is critical for organizations aiming to optimize their operations, reduce costs, and enhance overall efficiency. This strategy involves systematic planning and control of assets throughout their lifecycle, ensuring they deliver maximum value. Here's a closer look at why asset management strategy is crucial and how to develop a robust one.
Why Does Asset Management Strategy Matter?
Benefits of strategic asset management include the following:
Optimal Resource Utilization: An asset management strategy ensures that all resources, including equipment, technology, and facilities, are used efficiently. This helps in minimizing waste, reducing downtime, and maximizing productivity.
Cost Reduction: By effectively managing assets, organizations can avoid unnecessary purchases and reduce maintenance costs. Predictive maintenance, a key component of asset management, can prevent unexpected breakdowns and extend the lifespan of assets.
Risk Management: Proper asset management helps identify potential risks associated with asset failures or underperformance. This proactive approach allows for timely interventions, mitigating risks and ensuring continuous operation.
Regulatory Compliance: Many industries are subject to stringent regulations regarding asset management. A well-structured strategy ensures compliance with these regulations, avoiding legal penalties and enhancing the organization’s reputation.
Improved Decision-Making: With accurate data on asset performance and condition, management can make informed decisions across the asset lifecycle regarding acquisition, maintenance, and disposal. This leads to better financial planning and investment strategies.
Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Reliable and well-maintained assets contribute to consistent service delivery and product quality, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Developing a Strategic Asset Management Plan
Creating an effective strategic asset management plan involves several key steps:
Define Objectives and Scope: Start by clearly defining the goals of your asset management strategy. These might include cost reduction, risk mitigation, regulatory compliance, or performance optimization. Determine the scope by identifying the types of assets to be managed, such as physical, digital, or intangible assets.
Inventory and Assess Assets: Conduct a comprehensive inventory of all assets. Assess their current condition, performance, and value. This involves gathering data on each asset's age, usage, maintenance history, and expected lifespan.
Categorize and Prioritize Assets: Group assets based on their criticality to operations. Prioritize them according to factors like impact on production, replacement cost, and risk level. This helps focus resources on the most vital assets.
Develop Maintenance Plans: Establish maintenance schedules tailored to the needs of different asset categories. Implement predictive and preventive maintenance practices to reduce unexpected failures and extend asset life.
Implement Technology Solutions: Utilize asset management software to streamline processes, track asset performance, and store data. Asset management systems such as EAM and CMMS software can provide real-time insights, automate maintenance schedules, and generate reports for better decision-making.
Train and Engage Staff: Ensure that employees understand the importance of asset management and are trained in relevant processes and tools. Encourage their involvement in monitoring and maintaining assets, as their input can be valuable.
Monitor and Review Performance: Regularly review the performance of your asset management plan. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success in areas like cost savings, asset uptime, and compliance. Adjust as necessary to address any issues or changing conditions.
Continuous Improvement: Asset management is an ongoing process. Continuously seek ways to improve strategies and practices by staying informed about new technologies, industry standards, and best practices.
Ready to take your asset strategy to the next level?
Figuring out where you stand – and identifying where you can improve asset management – is the first step on any successful transformation moving your organization from a reactive situation to optimizing preventive maintenance, to condition-based/predictive maintenance, and finally to prescriptive maintenance. We can help you understand where you stand and where you want to go, then we can select the best condition monitoring technologies and platforms to ensure ROI and help you reach your goals.
Without this foundational review, digital investments could be wasted. Establishing and strengthening the basics is the first step to breaking out of a reactive asset approach and transforming into proactive work.
Allied’s Asset Management Strategy Development follows an effective, proven process that quickly identifies where your biggest gaps in asset management lie and where the greatest gains can be achieved. It is often stated that you must know where you are before you can get to where you are going. This holds true for organizations looking to develop an improvement initiative or bolster one already underway.
An Asset Management Strategy Assessment can help you:
Gain an understanding of the maturity of your organization across any element of asset management.
Align the organization to a common reliability vision.
Identify areas to optimize efficiency and effectiveness.
Understand where to focus efforts and resources to realize the most value.
Identify existing gaps and barriers to achieving the organization’s goals.
The Asset Management Strategy Assessment includes a period of data gathering and analysis, virtual and in-person interviews, self-assessments, and on-site follow-ups resulting in a business case for ROI and an action plan for a company to achieve its desired business goals.
We base this analysis on our time-tested maintenance and reliability best practices methodology and associated Strategic Asset Management Model.
Typically, organizations only conduct internal benchmarking within their own industry vertical, but to truly achieve world-class operations, our Asset Management Strategy Assessment is based on reliability best practices compiled through our benchmarking efforts that cover over 3,500 plants across all industry verticals allowing you to adopt best practices from other industries as a competitive advantage.
Establishing a business case for change is necessary for your review. Our method clearly maps out the financial impact of uncovering the hidden potential in your asset base to help you realize a higher return. Recognizing that business needs vary from organization to organization, Allied offers several alternatives for developing your business case and a complete analysis of the costs associated with conducting your improvement initiative.
Other Outputs from the assessment include:
Site Close Out – close-out meeting at the end of the review period identifying high-level strengths and gaps with comparisons to best practices.
Report – full report of the assessment findings, gaps, and recommendations.
Asset Management Strategy Roadmap – Your cross-functional team of champions and stakeholders work with Allied’s team to identify necessary reliability work streams and key roles on the team. The result is a detailed master plan that will close the gaps identified during the reliability assessment, along with a communication plan for the governance structure and a list of performance metrics to measure success.
An asset management strategy is vital for organizations seeking to optimize their assets' value and performance. By systematically managing assets, businesses can achieve significant cost savings, reduce risks, ensure regulatory compliance, and improve overall efficiency. Developing a robust asset management strategy involves setting clear objectives, conducting thorough asset assessments, prioritizing resources, implementing technology solutions, engaging staff, and continuously monitoring and improving processes. With a well-executed strategy, organizations can turn their assets into a competitive advantage, driving long-term success and sustainability.
Reliability Consulting
Having trouble resolving maintenance and reliability challenges can hamstring an operation. With class-leading asset reliability knowledge, best practices, advanced tools, and proven methodologies, our experts can develop business-focused solutions to overcome hurdles, regardless of where clients are in their reliability journey.
We find key talent today and help develop your workforce for tomorrow. Even when the best equipment and procedures are in place, optimal performance is likely out of reach without the right personnel. We can help you find the key talent to develop your workforce for tomorrow.
Our training courses encourage innovative thinking and drive home proven best practices. Attendees will learn how to approach processes critically and implement improvements where it matters most.
