What is an Asset Data Foundation?
An Asset Data Foundation is made up of high-quality master data, including Maintenance Master Data, accurately reflecting the physical plant and its needs. This data stands as the backbone of effective Maintenance Work Management and Asset Management. For asset-intensive organizations, the range of data extends from assets (functional locations, equipment) through their attributes, their routines (task lists, plans, strategies), and their required spare parts (BOMs).
The Importance of a Solid Asset Foundation
With the rise of international competition and market globalization, enormous pressure has been placed on corporations to improve efficiency and reliability while reducing operating costs. As a result, asset-intensive organizations have invested billions of dollars worldwide in ERP, EAM, and CMMS systems such as IBM Maximo, SAP PM, Oracle eAM, Infor EAM, and others to meet their maintenance and reliability goals. Unfortunately, many companies load legacy data into the new system, failing to ensure their data is complete and accurate.
Without an adequate Asset Data Foundation, EAM systems will simply fail to deliver their expected value. It is not possible to be strategic and continuously improve maintenance operations without assurance that existing data is valid and fit for purpose. Poor maintenance strategies directly impact day-to-day business and are usually a result of inaccurate or incomplete EAM data. Common consequences of poor quality data include unplanned shutdowns, HS&E issues, spares shortages, and high-cost maintenance operations.
Getting the Data Right is a Challenge
Delivering validated, high-quality data (on time) for projects or ever-increasing scale and complexity is a significant challenge. Without a proper solution for managing process, operators their contractors are challenged by non-repeatable and inefficient processes, risks to operational readiness, and a general lack of visibility into data readiness. For pre-operations teams that are spread across multiple locations, these challenges are often amplified. By relying on multiple versions of disconnected spreadsheets, data integrity can be compromised, exposing an organization to critical risks that can threaten operational excellence and the integrity of their maintenance systems.
Sustaining Asset Data Across the Enterprise
Engineering, maintenance, and supplier changes can affect the quality of Asset Data after it is placed in production. Sustaining data quality is very difficult and cannot be done in a timely and cost-effective manner using traditional tools or broad-reaching management or change programs. Consequently, post-production data can deteriorate rapidly. As companies experience changes to equipment and processes, existing Asset Data must be updated accordingly. Companies must be able to validate changes to data against organizational standards and industry best practices. Without a proper solution to manage these essential processes, companies are prone to large backlogs of unimplemented change requests, expensive manual processes, duplicate requests with no central visibility, and a lack of automated validation against corporate or industry standards.
Final Remarks
The foundation to operational excellence is a solid Asset Data Foundation. Asset-intensive companies spend millions of dollars each year on their EAM/CMMS system and maintaining the equipment that is the lifeblood of their business. Anything affecting the ability of that equipment to perform at peak performance wreaks havoc on the company’s bottom line. Maintenance costs a lot of money. Not maintaining equipment properly costs even more.
How Can We Help?
Webinar | Achieving CMMS Data Quality
Join Paul Peterson and David Hattrick as they discuss the effects of bad CMMS data on the maintenance organization. Discover best practices to help you easily find and fix data quality issues.
Brochure | How NRX AssetHub Can Help
NRX AssetHub provides asset-intensive businesses with world-class software for analyzing, visualizing, building, editing, organizing, approving, and sustaining high-quality Asset and Maintenance Data for their Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Computerized Maintenance Management (CMMS) systems. Get this brochure to start learning how we can help your organization.
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