Asset performance management (APM)

What is asset performance management?

Asset performance management (APM) is a decision-making process to manage assets and improve asset efficiency, availability, reliability, maintainability, and overall lifecycle value while reducing downtime. The APM process begins when an asset is in the design stage and continues through its entire lifecycle to measure, monitor, and improve its reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety.

Who uses asset performance management?

A variety of industries and organizations use asset performance management solutions, including:

• Manufacturers
• Service providers
• Government agencies
• Contractors
• Energy companies
• Utilities (electricity and gas)
• Railroads and transit agencies
• Land developers
• Building owners and managers
• Hospitals and healthcare

What are the steps of asset performance management?

The steps involved in APM are detailed below:

1. Implement a top-down approach to monitor assets and collect data
2. Understand and analyze the data using maintenance software, like asset performance management (APM) software, a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), or enterprise asset management (EAM) software
3. Take the data analytics collected in step two and develop a plan to optimize your assets' maintenance schedules and your employees' work schedules. The goal of the optimizations should be to increase productivity at your facility
4. Continue to monitor and adjust the asset usage and working conditions at your facility, while also continuously monitoring asset data for trends. As you monitor and track the data you can implement new processes to continuously improve your facility

What are the benefits of asset performance management?

Here are a few benefits of using APM:

• Reduces the cost of ownership: By managing the performance of assets, you can reduce the costs associated with repairs and maintenance.
• Increases asset availability: Asset availability is critical to ongoing operations. It impacts productivity, safety, quality, and financial results. With APM, you can increase asset availability by identifying and resolving issues before they impact your business. This also reduces downtime resulting from unplanned maintenance or repair work.
• Improves reliability: Since assets are managed at an organizational level rather than individually or departmentally, resources can be shared across facilities to optimize asset performance management strategies for each organization's unique needs and goals. For example, if a robot at one production facility breaks down and causes unexpected downtime, a spare robot can be moved from another facility to replace it. This helps improve reliability because it reduces operational risk related to individual equipment failure or system breakdowns that could otherwise cause significant disruption in workflow processes (e.g., supply chain).
• Reduces downtime: By deploying asset performance management, organizations can gain insight into their operations by collecting data on how their assets are being used over time. APM software collects data analytics that can forecast and predict asset failure. It also can predict when an asset will need maintenance or repair. This information can then be used to decide where to allocate resources, or how best to use existing resources to avoid costly downtime.

Asset performance management vs. enterprise asset management

Asset performance management (APM) is a subset of enterprise asset management (EAM) that focuses on monitoring and improving the performance of individual assets. EAM is defined as the process by which an organization manages its capital resources, including people, technology, and financials. This includes everything from buying new equipment to managing contracts for services. APM uses data gathered from EAM to make decisions about how to optimize the use of individual assets.