From condition monitoring to asset performance management
Regardless of their size and industries in which they operate, companies have to rely on the performance of their capital equipment. This performance is measured in carious ways, such as shareholder value, growth in sales revenue and returns and customer satisfaction. Multinational corporations in the chemical industry and in the oil/gas industry make significant investments in machinery and equipment. An equally important aspect is ensuring that production processes can run smoothly - from oil extraction and refining operations to marketing specialized products to consumers.
A single broken link in this delicate process can lead to millions of dollars in losses within a very short time. The productivity of machines and plants is therefore of growing importance to the financial success or failure of a business.
Given these circumstances, many companies are inclined to introduce high-performance tools to manage their equipment resources (assets), and thereby gain the greatest amount of information possible to assist them in making the right decisions for their group. The integration of these tools into existing ERP systems (enterprise resource management) is a further step toward increasing the transparency of business processes.
The purpose is clear: maximizing ROI throughout the entire organization, from maintenance to management.
The term "strategic asset" is frequently used in this context. What does strategic mean? Following are two examples: In order to meet production targets, the manufacturing sector has to rely on equipment availability. The equipment is therefore strategic. Companies with a large sales force in the field are dependent upon the availability of their CRM software (customer relationship management), in order to coordinate appointments and customer inquiries. Thus, IT availability is of equal strategic importance for these types of businesses. It can be reasonably assumed that no company will purchase goods and then simply let them stand around idle without generating added value for the business. In other words, because all equipment resources are basically strategic, the term is thus not very useful in this context. This means that the distinction between equipment resources that are "critical for success" or "noncritical" instead provides information on the importance of each individual machine.
To learn more about PROGNOST Systems visit www.prognost.com.