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Decision making made easierAn asset management system ideally should be fully equipped to handle all aspect of asset life cycle management including budgeting and cost control

Feb/Mar 2011 | A&D India

s o f t w a r e & e n g i n e e r i n g t o o l s A p p l i c A t i o n70

With an aim of providing solutions to key business challenges in asset management, improving operational efficiencies and enabling informed decision making both tactical and strategic, an asset management system helps ensure effective collaboration among various stakeholders in the life cycle management of assets. ■ Rajeev Singh

proposed asset management system is fully integrated and offers holistic support for

business processes from asset planning, acquisition and capitalisation, asset lifecycle maintenance to asset disposal. Ramco’s integrated asset management system offers comprehensive capabilities from integrating and automating business processes, to reporting and analysis for decision support. Implemented judiciously, it becomes a rich source of quality business

data – the back bone for analysis and continuous improvement including improved and sustained asset performance and overall cost optimisation. The solution has necessary features to manage the infrastructure assets in a holistic manner. Specifically, it can provide solution to key challenges faced. For example:■ asset planning■ asset visibility and tracking■ asset condition inspection and

monitoring

a

Rajeev Singh Practice Head - Enterprise Asset Management Ramco Systems

rajeevsingh@rsi.ramco.com >

Feb/Mar 2011 | A&D India

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■ route-based inspection and maintenance planning

■ standardisation and streamlining of asset management processes across organisations for different categories of assets

■ optimisation of maintenance programs – preventive, corrective, or condition or risk based

■ accurate tracking of life cycle cost and cost optimisation

■ resource management and productivity■ decision-making challenges such as:

• refurbish or replace• ‘level of investment’ decision-making

– capital renewal• deferring maintenance• asset insurance – what and how much

to insure• maintenance outsourcing decision –

in-house or outsourceApart from these, in order to get a

holistic view, it is often essential that the asset management system integrates with other applications/IT systems in use.

Asset register

Asset registration as a process is supported for various possible business scenarios, such as inducting existing assets, when a new asset is acquired, when a new asset is created (built and capitalised). The asset registration process is fully geared to handle maintenance life cycle as well as financial and fixed asset accounting related attributes. The fixed assets register enables tracking all the details of an asset and provides the following information:■ asset insurance■ asset warranty■ asset depreciation■ asset revaluation■ asset number■ tag details■ location of the asset■ date on which the asset is put to use■ opening balance of the asset■ transaction total during a period■ closing balance

There are quite a few features available for appropriate modeling of assets from maintenance and accounting perspective. One of them is asset classification, which can be very important from planning, analysis and related decision making.

Risk assessment

The solution provides risk management capabilities at two levels – risk hedging through asset insurance and risk management from maintenance point of view. It also offers a capability of combining these two to construct a risk management dashboard. Risk management from maintenance and sustenance perspective is a systematic process to identify risks that may impact on the organisation’s objectives, analyse their consequences and develop ongoing measures to treat them.

Analytical level

The application’s analytic tool can integrate with GIS to provide insightful reporting information on the map interface of GIS application. Any other unique requirement of spatial viewing can also be supported once the details of the needs are known.

Life cycle costing

Ramco’s application is built on a holistic perspective, where it is easy to track the life cycle cost from all perspectives, including replacement value perspective. The traditional asset management approach has been to focus on the operating phase of the asset lifecycle as that is the phase generally seen yielding value.

Maintenance options and costs

There are a variety of features that can be used to construct standard maintenance plans (or treatment options). Various maintenance options can be modeled as standard practices and costing related information can be provided. In order to assist in decision making, a cost-benefit comparison (e.g. cost -vs- life extension) can be provided through the analytical tool. It is entirely possible to construct unique decision models for various categories of assets or asset groups.

Work planning

Work planning, scheduling and execution with reporting of actual by maintenance work order cycle process is fully provided. Regular preventive maintenance jobs like

storm water drain filter mesh cleaning, inspection of roads, bridges, transport vehicles, calibration of fire sensors, smoke detectors in community halls can be assigned based on fixed or interval based schedules and preventive, predictive, calibration schedules created accordingly. Resources like spares, skill, tools are scheduled to the work orders. Required material and resource planning is supported. A maintenance plan like a half yearly or yearly plan can be created and related pending job list, shutdown job list are added and the plan can be reviewed and monitored for finding the status.

Supply chain management

A fully integrated supply chain solution including service contracts and MRO supply chain management with purchasing, and inventory control is definitely required. Ramco’s solution offers mature functionality for efficient supply chain management for asset life cycle management and has the provision to rope in OEM suppliers as a stakeholder in life cycle management of assets.

Summing upRamco’s solution hinges on the concept that the TCO as well as performance of the asset can be impacted substantially during various phases of asset lifecycle if the same is not managed well. We believe that the solution must allow for stakeholder’s participation, transparency, and visibility on asset condition, performance, and costs and must support an optimal decision making based on facts. ■

a well-planned and optimised range of products forms the foundation upon which efficient automation solutions are built

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