Keeping your assets (and, by extension, your business) running smoothly takes planning and vigilance. Every company needs a risk management plan and an asset management system in place to prevent disasters.
This is especially true when your company relies on technology. A single glitch or software failure can cause disastrous repercussions in almost any industry. That’s why it’s important to have the right safeguards in place before anything goes wrong. If you’re already thinking about what could go wrong with your assets, you are on the right track!
In the world of technology, issues with assets can be a significant risk to the company’s ability to function properly. Companies need to be on top of their assets to ensure that they are functioning properly and not causing any issues that would interrupt the company’s ability to function.
Read on to discover how asset management can keep you from being blindsided by unexpected disruptions in your business operations and how performance monitoring reduces the likelihood of future outages.
Before we get to the 3 essential tips, there’s a few topics to clarify:
What is Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA and FMECA)?
Proper management of your assets involves planning ahead. One of the biggest obstacles that businesses face is a failure of a specific element that they need to rely on. These failures are inevitable, but what’s important is your response to the failure. If you’re unprepared for these failures, they’ll likely have a much bigger impact, and become a much bigger problem than they should be.
Using Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) will ensure that you are ready for those failures when they eventually do occur by having a plan in place that you can follow. FMEA was developed by the US military in the 1940s, and it’s a tactic that has been used frequently ever since then. The strategy is split into two different elements.
The first part is “Failure Modes”. The modes are how something might fail. These errors or defects are especially important to identify if they’re going to affect the client. The second part of FMEA is “Effects Analysis”. This is where you take a closer look into how the failures will affect your business — in other words, the consequences of those failures.
FMECA takes this to a more detailed level by building upon the FMEA process. FMECA does so by not only identifying potential failure modes, but also investigating and isolating any potential failure through a series of actions. FMEA assigns a severity level, FMECA goes deeper into providing accurate results, along with ranking errors in terms of criticality.
A great illustrative example of where the FMECA system would be used is by an airline. One possible failure mode is technical difficulties with the aircraft, and the effect analysis would include a delayed flight and frustrated passengers.
Failure modes should be prioritised based on several factors including how severe the consequences of the failure are, how frequently the failure might occur, and how easily the failure can be detected. From here, you can take action and put a plan in place to deal with the high-priority failures as quickly as possible, which will minimise their effects on your operations.
What is Asset Management?
Assets are anything that supports your business, which means asset management is about more than just hardware, software, and facilities. It’s also about people, processes, and policies.
Asset management is the process of identifying, tracking, and maintaining information on an organisation’s assets. This includes both physical assets, such as buildings and equipment, and intangible assets, such as intellectual property and goodwill. Asset management is a key component of an organisation’s overall operations, as it helps to ensure that assets are properly utilised and accounted for.
Asset management is about more than just keeping an inventory of your company’s purchases. It also means proactively managing your resources to reduce risk, increasing productivity, and improving customer satisfaction. Asset management is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative factors, meaning you will need to track data and make assessments based on certain factors to get a complete picture of your assets’ condition and usage.
An effective asset management system can help an organisation improve its financial and operational performance, as well as its risk management and compliance posture. A well-designed asset management system can also provide visibility into an organisation’s asset portfolio, helping to identify opportunities for cost savings and efficiencies.
Keeping track of your company’s purchases is simply one aspect of asset management. Additionally, it entails actively managing your resources to lower risk, boosting output, and boosting client pleasure. Asset management involves both quantitative and qualitative considerations, so to gain a complete picture of the utilisation and condition of your assets, you will need to gather data and make judgements based on specific considerations. Asset management encompasses more than simply hardware, software and facilities because assets include anything that helps your organisation run. Additionally, it concerns individuals, systems, and laws.
Tip #1 Perform Ongoing Asset Performance Monitoring
One of the most important elements of asset management is ongoing monitoring, which takes place throughout the life of the asset. Asset performance monitoring is a critical component of effective asset management. By tracking the performance of assets over time, organisations can identify issues early and take corrective action based on their FMECA method to prevent problems from occurring.
Asset performance monitoring can handle many forms, but should always include some form of data collection and analysis. Common data points that are tracked include asset utilisation, downtime, and repair/maintenance costs. This data can be collected manually or through automated systems, depending on the needs of the organisation.
Analysis of asset performance data can help organisations to identify trends and potential problems. For example, if downtime is increasing for a particular asset, this could be indicative of a larger issue that needs to be addressed. By taking action to correct problems before they occur, organisations can improve asset reliability and save money in the long run.
It is essential to continuously monitor the performance of your assets to identify issues early and prevent them from becoming major problems. Asset performance management software can help you track the performance of your assets over time, identify trends, and predict future issues. This can be a valuable tool for proactive asset management.
With your FMECA plan in place, regular inspections of your assets can help you identify potential problems before they become serious. This is especially important for critical assets that could cause significant disruptions if they failed. Maintaining accurate records of your assets is also essential for effective asset performance monitoring. This includes records of inspections, maintenance, and repairs. Having accurate records will allow you to track the performance of your assets over time and identify trends. OEE (Overall equipment effectiveness) and FRACAS (Failure reporting, analysis, and corrective action system) are also important tools for monitoring asset performance.
Tip #2 Create an Asset Reliability Strategy
An asset reliability strategy is a plan for ensuring that critical assets are available when needed and can perform their required functions. The strategy should be tailored to the specific assets and operations of the organisation. It should identify the assets that are critical to operations, the risks that could affect their availability, and the actions that can be taken to mitigate those risks.
The strategy should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that it remains effective. There are three key topics to keep in mind when it comes to Asset Reliability Strategy:
- Predictive analytics
- Prescriptive maintenance
- Condition-based maintenance
Creating an asset reliability strategy is critical to the success of any organisation. An asset reliability strategy ensures that an organisation’s assets are properly maintained and operated and that any potential problems are identified and corrected promptly.
There are several factors to consider when creating an asset reliability strategy, such as the type of assets an organisation has, the environment in which they are operated, and the desired level of reliability. Organisations must also consider the costs associated with maintaining and operating their assets, as well as the potential risks of not properly maintaining them.
An effective asset reliability strategy can help an organisation save money and improve its overall performance. It is important to work with experienced professionals when developing an asset reliability strategy to ensure that it is tailored to the specific needs of the organisation.
Tip #3 Develop a Plan for Resolving Asset Issues
The best asset management system in the world will take you only so far. It’s also important to have a plan in place for resolving issues with your assets and to be proactive about preventing problems wherever you can.
This plan should include a clear understanding of the problem, a strategy for resolving the issue, and a timeline for implementation. Without a plan, it can be difficult to resolve asset issues in a timely and effective manner. A quick and reliable troubleshooting process can help you identify and resolve issues before they become major problems.
This means having a detailed process for isolating issues, a communication plan for disseminating information to the right people, and a transparent chain of command for resolving issues.
This is where using FMECA will be beneficial to you. Having already established any possible failures or issues that might arise in the future will help you to rapidly cover them with solutions. If you’ve got the FMECA system in place, any issue that comes up in the future won’t be “unexpected”, and since you’ve already developed a plan for how to resolve the issues, it’s all about executing the plan you have in place to the best of your abilities.
Final Thoughts
We hope you enjoyed this article on tips for Managing Your Assets to Ensure Reliability and Availability and how to use the FMECA method to properly manage your assets.
Make sure to read our 7 Tips for Improving Asset Performance Management for more insights.
Should you have any questions feel free to contact us at enquiries@optimal.world.
Thank you for reading, and we look forward to hearing from you!
