Convergence of EAM, FSM, and the Connected Workforce

Enterprise asset management (EAM) and field service management (FSM) each are critical business functions. EAM is responsible for the planning, budgeting, and management of an organization’s assets, while FSM is responsible for the planning, scheduling, and execution of field service activities.

Traditionally, EAM and FSM have been managed as separate functions, operating in asynchronous work groups each using its own software and management systems. This results in a siloed approach whose drawbacks include duplication of effort and lack of scalability. When activities are divided at the data and workflow levels, visibility and collaboration are limited by disparate systems and processes, leading to data inconsistency and errors and, in turn, greater operational complexity and costs.      

At the heart of these issues are systems designed and implemented decades ago, when field service assets were collected in one central location and work orders were issued on paper. They were not conceived in a world comprising millions of distributed assets. These legacy systems split the world into two distinct work groups by dividing Field service management (FSM) and Enterprise asset management (EAM) functions at the data and workflow levels.

Moreover, the operational approach to management has completely changed over that time; in many cases, issues formerly reported by customers via a phone call now alert field service providers automatically through IoT connectivity — inextricably linking asset and field service management.  To unlock the potential value across your assets and teams, you want one unified system to do it all.

Field workers are the core of the business and hold the keys to achieving the full value of an asset management system. By integrating the worker experience directly into asset management processes, organizations can unlock efficiencies across their workstreams, gain critical data inputs that improve the asset management approaches/processes/strategies, and provide their teams the tools and resources they need to do their jobs effectively, becoming more productive, as well as more efficient, engaged, and satisfied.

Field service organizations must deal with employee issues, weather events, and supply chain problems — all while under tremendous pressure to improve operations. The field worker responding to a downed power line or broken electrical box at 2 a.m. is the front line of your operations, and it’s critical to provide them with the information they need in real time, along with safety parameters and job site and asset background information. Providing field technicians with modern tools (e.g., guided, digital navigation and forms relevant to their tasks, versus paper manuals and forms) eases their work, increases safety, and makes better use of their time. A unified EAM/FSM system empowers all workers with easily accessible and actionable information — on demand.

The more complete and connected view of assets, operations, and historical records contributes to the operational efficiency paramount to successful field service. Achieving it requires optimizing the organization’s workforce, which means breaking down siloed teams and connecting them in a way that empowers them to react to customer needs in near-real time. True end-to-end optimization raises enterprise resource planning (ERP) as a maturity model benchmark, blending IT and business functions, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, customer engagement, asset management, and workforce management. This visibility and connectivity, driving asset and service management on one platform, allows field service organizations to retool their workforces for greater efficiency in real time, from onboarding employees and scale-up to transitioning from one work type to another.

Flawed rollouts and usability issues — or fear of those outcomes — are the biggest impediments to adoption of combined EAM/FSM systems. Field service organizations often want a system that can be purchased or implemented in pieces, modularly, or they are concerned about the difficulty of integration with their other core systems (e.g., ERP, billing).     

KloudGin leverages an integration engine to alleviate such concerns regarding platform alignment. Software giants operating in the field service space are typically inflexible, selling a catalog product to customers. KloudGin’s dynamic, best-of-breed systems are built on a modern cloud technology platform, rather than balanced precariously atop an aging legacy platform. Accordingly, they are molded to fit each customer’s business, rather than forcing organizations to adapt to the system.

This flexibility drives system deployment that does not disrupt customer teams and operations, preserving the best aspects of your processes and customer experience — paving a path to success through field enablement, workforce empowerment, true asset management, and full system integration. To learn more, contact the authors and visit https://kloudgin.com. 

About KloudGin
KloudGin is a trusted provider of the only combined, cloud-based field and asset management solution that connects customers, employees, and assets using AI-powered access to information, on any device. Built for the workers who use it most, KloudGin eliminates traditional information and process silos to enable clients to unify siloed systems, resources, and processes so they can transform the customer experience and improve worker productivity to effectively meet the challenges of today—and the demands of tomorrow.