Sometimes people will say, “Asset management, that’s just a maintenance function,” as if that is a bad thing. Ensuring the production availability of all the equipment that has been procured and installed—often at the cost of millions of dollars—is an awesome task. And, it is the task of everyone—not only the maintenance department. Operations departments play an important role in finding problems before they escalate. Tying data into information technology systems can provide additional benefits. Everyone needs to play in this game.

Bringing asset management up to global best-in-class status often requires a change in perspective and approach. The process needs a defined strategy to know where to go and how to get there. And how management and employees view metrics and personnel roles plays an important part, as well.

Boston-based analyst firm Aberdeen Group Inc. researched companies in the process industry to glean some ideas about what sets best-in-class companies apart from run-of-the-mill outfits. The results are detailed in Aberdeen’s November 2008 report, “Operational Excellence in the Process Industries.”

The research showed that best-in-class companies enable senior executives with real-time visibility into operational performance. According to Mehul Shah, Aberdeen research analyst, “The most successful companies in the process industries leverage automation and manufacturing software throughout the plant to optimize manufacturing operations, but they also integrate these systems to the business systems. This gives them the visibility needed to avoid adverse events within operations and improve overall efficiency.”

The report recommends that companies establish cross-functional teams to standardize appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) and provide role-based visibility, among other things.

Beyond predicting

Achieving some of the recommendations put forward by Aberdeen requires changing perspective and incorporating new tools. George Buckbee, vice president of marketing and product development at ExperTune Inc., a process control software supplier in Hartland, Wis., says, “In the past, asset management tended to focus on expected service life, then on diagnosing failures, then on predicting and managing maintenance issues. In the current state of affairs, asset management tools like [Expertune’s] PlantTriage are also finding system bottlenecks and identifying ways to increase system capability,” says Buckbee.

Success in asset management comes from having the right tools and the right practices in place, Buckbee points out. “Tools alone do not solve problems. And practices without tools are highly inefficient. Asset management tools, such as diagnostics, performance tracking and maintenance planning help in the automatic identification, prioritization, and resolution of asset performance issues.”

Managers and engineers searching for the right tools and practices to improve asset management should look in a number of places for the appropriate technology. Moin Shaikh, fieldbus technologies marketing manager, at automation supplier Siemens Energy & Automation Inc., in Spring House, Pa., says, “Asset management means different things to different people. I’d start with ‘plant asset management’ or ‘collaborative process automation,’ in the terms of ARC Advisory Group. It includes field instrumentation, then plant floor and operations, then at the top is the enterprise level.”

Plant asset management (PAM) is tied to the plant floor, says Shaikh—it’s the first system that comes into contact with equipment. It’s also quite different from enterprise resource planning (ERP) or computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), he points out. “PAM is more focused on reducing unplanned downtime and improving maintenance functions,” Shaikh explains. “CMMS systems are also sometimes thought of as doing this, but they are more focused on managing the overall maintenance system. At the upper layer, systems talk to enterprise asset management to optimize plant throughput and look at KPIs related to production.”

Shaikh takes the discussion a little deeper as he looks into the sources of information to feed the visibility and KPI applications required for good management practice.  Stating that traditional asset management systems obtained information through the control systems, Shaikh adds, “We need a way to look not only at the process itself, but also at the health of the equipment. There are many intelligent devices, but there are also systems that are not so intelligent.”

This is where fieldbus systems come to play, Shaikh says. “With fieldbus technologies, we have seen now that we not only open and close valves or monitor temperatures or control the speed of drives as through the control system, but we can also talk to the devices and gain a whole lot more information in a cost-effective way. We can look at doing more than controlling, but we can get this information from motors or valves or other field devices in a digital format.”

Jeffrey Vasel, global marketing manager, 800xa ...