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Enterprise Asset Management 101: How to Cut Costs and Increase Efficiency

Modern companies must adapt to increasing demands and efficiency expectations from consumers and shareholders by optimizing and improving their asset management operations. Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software drives digital transformation for companies by decreasing equipment downtime through enhanced analytical and maintenance abilities, which increases asset lifecycles—ultimately saving companies thousands to millions of dollars in repair and replacement costs.

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What is Enterprise Asset Management?

Enterprise asset management is a platform that catalogs, monitors, and helps control and maintain equipment and assets. Companies and industries that rely on successful asset management include any large enterprise with widespread assets at multiple locations like in construction, manufacturing, municipal services, and even healthcare. Modern EAM software powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can act like a third eye to monitor and digest sensor-derived internet of things (IoT) data to provide tangible asset insights that can grant companies accurate and up-to-date asset counts, preemptively signal for repairs, locate lost equipment and any items in the field, and report on the current state of all critical assets.

 

These enhanced controls and insights help manage physical company assets over their entire lifecycle and minimize service and supply chain interruptions if they’re presented by offering a predictive maintenance solution. Tracking and increased visibility help to maximize asset performance, increase ROI and workplace safety, and improve the cost of equipment ownership and overall operational efficiency.

What are the differences between Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Systems and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)?

A CMMSs primary focus is on the maintenance of equipment and machinery, whereas EAMs include maintenance procedures within their programming and take a broader and more in-depth view of your entire inventory. EAM-generated asset management analytics provide intelligent insights for cost reduction and operation optimization during the whole asset lifecycle, from planning and procurement to disposal.

 

Both types of software provide helpful information for equipment and machinery maintenance and management. Where CMMSs fall short of granting visibility and control of inventory aside from maintaining equipment and machinery, EAMs make up the difference and include a built-in CMMS. Companies managing large, diverse, and dispersed troves of assets choose the more advanced management capabilities of an EAM for the superior uses it provides.

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What Industries Use EAM Software?

Enterprise Asset Management software has traditionally been used in field service industries like telecommunications, utilities, and energy. EAM Software also benefits other asset-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, construction, asset rentals, and engineering. EAM benefits industries where equipment availability and maintenance are critical to successful business operations, especially on a large scale.

Due to increased accessibility to these platforms and the increase in field service operations for industries like healthcare, adopting EAM software is becoming more commonplace and critical for minimizing maintenance, repair, and replacement costs.

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What are the Benefits of Enterprise Asset
Management Software?

The insight and control over your entire asset and equipment inventory unlock critical benefits for businesses that optimize operations, reduce downtime and overall costs, and improve customer service and relationships. Cloud asset management, or asset management connected and centralized under one cloud-based platform, combines field service and asset management to transform operations digitally while consolidating all information under one roof.

Benefits of EAM software:

Increase Daily Operational Efficiency

When asset-intensive companies are constantly aware of the real-time location, quantities, and conditions of their entire inventory, surprises and unpredictable interruptions are less likely to occur. A quality EAM will offer predictive maintenance solutions through increased awareness and insights to prevent breakdowns or underestimation of needed equipment, both of which combat productivity. Downtime in a manufacturing or production environment can be very expensive, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour or more, quickly adding up to millions in losses. Predictive maintenance can help companies avoid these costly incidents.

 

When all information is centralized, communication between different sectors of an organization becomes easier or even less necessary, as AI-indexed and analyzed data is accessible to all under the same cloud-based EAM software.

Eliminate Error-Prone & Outdated Processes

Historically, physical or electronic spreadsheets have documented asset management and field service operations. While certain small businesses with few employees and assets may still be able to operate through this antiquated process, larger and more asset-intensive companies inhibit their efficiency and overall capabilities by using spreadsheets or pen-and-paper record-keeping.

 

Spreadsheets and hand-written records are often error and damage-prone, inaccurate, illegible, and easy to misplace or lose. EAMs eliminate all these issues by uniting all communications under one cloud asset management platform and optimizing interactions between employees, management, customers, and suppliers.

Longer Asset Lifecycles

By possessing and analyzing centralized, cloud-based asset data through an AI-powered enterprise asset management system, preventative maintenance solutions are automatically implemented when an asset or piece of equipment indicates to the cloud that attention is required, creating a work order.

 

This awareness ensures preventative repairs or replacements are made, increasing worker safety and the entire lifecycle of valuable assets, as well-maintained machines or other items last longer than those neglected or misused.

Improve Inventory Management

Approximately 50% of unplanned asset downtime can be traced back to poor inventory management. Implementing an EAM and tightening the reins on your supply of vital resources can help eliminate avoidable and time-wasting maintenance or repair interruptions. Increased asset and inventory awareness also improve scheduled and preventative maintenance by ensuring all available supplies are available or can be procured appropriately.

 

While avoiding all maintenance and repair operations is impossible, the more insight and control a company has over its inventory, combined with the proper software to analyze and harness this information—the less time and money will be wasted fixing broken equipment and assets.

Superior Insight Abilities Through
Asset Management Analytics

The bottom line for implementing EAM software for improving operations is simple—your company will save money.

While simplified and improved preventative maintenance is a significant contributor to EAM-granted cost reduction, the enhanced analytic abilities provided by AI and machine learning-powered asset management platforms increase confidence in making wise, cost-effective, evidence-based decisions.

 

EAMs are custom-designed to gather the specific data your company needs for cost-saving, key-performance-indicator tracking, and other insights that will improve overall efficiency and operations.

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What are Essential Enterprise Asset
Management Software Features?

Asset Procurement and Budgeting

Asset management and cost reduction are dependent on proper budgeting and appropriate procurement. A quality EAM will help create budgets based on gathered data through the platform and will ensure you are sticking to set parameters and only spending on necessary expenditures and procurements.

Depreciation Schedule

EAM software needs to account for the depreciated value of equipment or assets as they fluctuate throughout their respective lifecycles. Increased awareness of depreciation schedules and values will reduce wasted maintenance costs and indicate when an asset’s potential use has exceeded its monetary and contributive value and should be replaced entirely.

Lease Asset Accountability

To increase visibility for all parties, including executive management and other stakeholders, EAM software must house any necessary documentation, including work orders, lease agreements, purchase contracts and other information. With the ability to upload and store relevant documents, accountability is centralized, and all documents are in one easy-to-access location.

IoT-Integrated Asset Maintenance

AI-powered Enterprise Asset Management software is programmable to automatically follow maintenance schedules and other vital procedures based on sensor-derived data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices. IoT sensors monitor assets and alert the necessary outlet when something is amiss or needs attention or maintenance. These intelligent machines can also alert for and order low-inventory assets or needed maintenance equipment, ensuring that companies can skirt unexpected shortages or procurement delays. Even better—machine learning-enabled EAM software will automatically improve operations as more data is gathered, constantly working to make asset management and field service more efficient.

IoT devices offer modern, safer, and more convenient procurement and predictive maintenance solutions that are increasingly popular in field service industries. Sensors gather remote data from hard-to-access locations and centralize, analyze, and store the information in one cloud asset management system.

Asset Decommissioning and Disposal

EAM software simplifies asset decommissioning and disposal processes by providing advanced notice of when this process will begin and digitally removing the equipment or asset no longer in existence or the company’s possession. This removal ensures accurate inventory counts and eliminates the likelihood of improper asset procurement or usage.

Cloud-Based

A cloud-based Enterprise Asset Management platform is the industry standard, and any other option is inefficient. If information regarding equipment and items spread far and wide is not instantly accessible to every vital employee from anywhere at any time, then it cannot meet the demands of modern field service and asset management practices.

Data that is siloed is inaccessible and detrimental to optimal operations. Implementing cloud-based solutions is the single most effective remedy for increasing efficiency and customer service capabilities.

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Does My Organization Need Enterprise Asset Management Software?

Before your company implements a new technology, make sure you’ll benefit from purchasing and implementing fresh tech, as that isn’t always the case. There’s no point in spending money on something that isn’t built for the size or scale of your business, as this could ultimately do more harm than good.

 

Suppose you don’t have EAM software, for example, and the scale of your equipment and asset management operations are significant yet lagging in efficiency. In that case, you could likely benefit from such technology, and implementation would be appropriate.

 

But if your operations are purely local, or your assets and supply chain are small, your business would probably not benefit from such software.

 

Knowing the appropriate time to implement enterprise asset management software is contingent upon your operation’s effectiveness, scale, growth, and demands.

 

If you’re ready to take tighter control of your asset and equipment management with EAM software, contact KloudGin today to learn how we can custom-tailor our Asset Management Suite to meet the needs and scale of your operations.

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