Over the years, it has been normal for our brains not to remember all the information we have experienced or witnessed until then. Perhaps you will still be able to describe an event that occurred last month in detail. However, there is no guarantee that you will remember it in the same detail in 5 years.
In a normal situation, this happens because memory is selective and will most likely not recall all experiences in the same way. For this reason, there is ‘History,’ which, according to the dictionary, is the science that studies past events concerning specific people, countries, periods, or individuals.
The historical record is nothing more than the knowledge related to the past of humanity and its evolution, according to the place, the time, and the chosen point of view.
Using this knowledge in our maintenance landscape, we know that it is crucial to maintain an asset maintenance history, which brings numerous benefits to management. Read on to better understand why your company needs these maintenance histories.
What is asset management?
The set of assets is defined according to what is valuable to an organization and can be classified into two categories: tangible and intangible.
Tangible assets include equipment, vehicles, tools, industrial machinery, and the like. Intangible assets include knowledge, patents, methodology, and the like. Both categories are essential in an organization and require control.
As each branch of activity assigns its values to the assets, it is important to know your organization well so that control is effective. Asset management oversees managing all the assets of an organization.
What is the purpose of asset management?
For an industrial company, controlling ‘Assets’ comprises managing the equipment, tools, and materials directly linked to the production and use of machinery.
A service provider company, on the other hand, has as assets its customers, contracts, and labor (internal or outsourced) to perform the services.
We can also highlight as an example the hospital branch that has equipment of the most varied types, such as resonance machines, monitoring equipment, and air conditioners for air-conditioned environments. This equipment is an extremely necessary asset for the proper functioning of their activities.
How do you control your asset condition?
To perform asset management, you must follow a few steps, such as:
- Empower your employees:
Trained professionals with an understanding of the business contribute to the success of the organization. Give training to your team, and prepare all possible tools to manage your assets. These professionals need to know the company’s values and mission. Involve them in the process so that they understand the importance of this organization for society as a whole.
- Account for your assets:
To control assets, it is necessary to account for them. Define your categories, use them, and evaluate costs. Have reliable inventory, history, and conservation manuals.
- Define conservation methods:
With qualified professionals who know your assets, define methods for their conservation. Handling of machinery, location, and time of use contributes a lot to the topic addressed.
Importance of asset management
Controlling assets is not just about counting the amount of equipment, materials, and customers, and thus measuring inventory, services, and financial costs of the company’s assets. It goes far beyond these very important checks.
Asset management comprises, in addition to scoring them and measuring the value of the assets, extending the lifespan of these assets. Extending the lifespan of an asset is only possible with its maintainability. For this, it is essential to know the types of maintenance and apply them in your asset management.
If a problem has already set in, causing equipment downtime, the need for corrective maintenance is obvious. For companies that have understood that for effective asset management, good maintenance practices need to be included in the methods of conservation of their assets. This includes preventive and predictive maintenance, as well as total productive maintenance (TPM), which are applied when there is a maintenance engineering team.
What are the benefits of extending your asset lifespan?
Normally, corrective maintenance has a very high cost, as there is often no planning of costs, materials, and human resources to perform maintenance.
Knowing this, it is increasingly common for organizations to advance in maintenance management and adopt preventive maintenance methods, where maintenance is scheduled in predetermined periods according to need and criteria in a planned and systematic way.
Most companies, when they reach this stage, are stuck with the concept that if there is preventive scheduling, everything is fine and there is nothing to worry about. They have already minimized the unscheduled correctives, they stagnate at this point.
Well, what if we say that as much as it is an advance to increase preventive maintenance, the ideal, according to studies, is that it does not exceed 30% of total maintenance?
This means that in order to have a significant result in preserving the life of your assets, it is necessary to apply predictive maintenance that uses the monitoring strategy, inspections, vibration control, electrical voltage, and hour meter. Applying predictive maintenance provides anticipation of any abnormality before an unscheduled shutdown occurs, mainly combined with industry 4.0 technologies.
These and other issues are solved using CMMS software that, in addition to managing your assets, also manages maintenance. And if the subject is maintenance software, we cannot fail to mention Engeman® our solution specialized in this topic.
Asset condition control on Engeman® software
At Engeman® it is possible to perform efficient asset management. Detailed information about your asset, like the cost center record, asset type, specification, serial number, location, acquisition date, warranty date, criticality, and specific remarks, is easily recorded. In addition to KPI indicators containing the history of open and closed W.O.s, MTBF and MTTR, and history of movements. All for control of your assets.
As we have previously highlighted, asset condition control is very broad and involves several processes, including the maintainability of equipment. Details about the description of the plan, whether the type of maintenance is preventive, corrective, scheduled, for example, or even which department is responsible for performing it. Which procedures will be performed in this service, necessary materials, and estimated time to perform are available in Engeman.®.
Engeman® structures the entire schedule of the Maintenance Plan. This includes whether it will be performed periodically or specifically on a date, if there are recurring events, what actions I need to take on the equipment, how to define cumulative maintenance to control the hour meter, etc.
Conclusion
Asset management requires expertise, and this is acquired with a lot of study and experience. An organization that has in mind the importance and responsibility of this control will always seek continuous learning, optimizing time and money.
Asset condition control in maintenance management emerges as a fundamental piece to optimize operational efficiency and extend equipment lifespan. By adopting advanced predictive monitoring and diagnostic strategies, businesses can move beyond the traditional corrective maintenance model to a more preventative and predictive approach.
With Engeman® software, your company can assertively do asset condition control. To learn more about Engeman®, contact our team!
