ENTERPRISE Asset Management (EAM) has undergone a great deal of rapid change in recent years, maturing into a co-ordinated and focused strategy from its roots in various isolated functions. These previously unconnected activities include SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), network control systems, GIS systems, work and maintenance management systems (often focused on a mobile workforce) and asset information management. All of them deal with information pertaining to the assets needed by various systems to function correctly.
Bringing all these elements together is a complex and wide-ranging process of integration. However the benefits that result are substantial and these rewards grow exponentially when the EAM system has itself been integrated with other systems such as CRM or ERP. The move away from a ‘silo’ approach has led to better, more efficient use of assets that has in turn led to improvements not only in profitability, but also the level of service provided to customers.
One of the areas with which EAM has most in common is supply chain management (SCM) — both deal with getting the right assets to the right place at the right time. Both are heavily reliant upon transport infrastructure and both can deliver huge rewards with minimal change to processes.
Integrating the systems of EAM and SCM has been based upon an improvement of the major technologies involved within both disciplines. There are six major groups of technology that are leading this evolution:
Remote sensing
Using technology such as lasers, radar or infra-red to measure and track changes in assets remotely is a big area of potential growth. These measurement elements are usually deployed via aircraft or even satellite, enabling the assessment of a large geographical area and the assets therein very quickly. Examples have included using laser technology to plot the topology and topography of forests — issues that can have a big impact on the location of power lines, transmission towers, or other infrastructure.
There are many developments for remote sensing currently underway. The accuracy of the systems continues to improve, down to a matter of millimetres in some cases. Applications are also on the increase as these technologies are even feasible through water to a depth of several metres.
RFID is already an established technology but there is still a lot of room for development. The RFID tags themselves are becoming much cheaper, leading to them becoming more pervasive. The use of active tags is also being developed as the power sources for them are now sophisticated and less intrusive in terms of their size and weight.
Active tags enable detection of the tagged goods at a far greater distance and can provide proactive information. One example has been the use of RFID tags to monitor train brake pads providing a real-time temperature readout of each wheel. This information is transmitted to computers in the cab and then sent on to a central control facility. This has already helped to spot any likely future problems proactively, demonstrating the case for RFID in safety critical applications.
A variety of developments, closely linked to those in RFID are currently underway. Low power radio transmissions are at the heart of new M2M communication systems.
Powering the devices that need to be continually on in order to communicate with devices elsewhere on site is evolving as well. For some applications power can be generated from the energy provided by inherent plant vibrations (usually at 50 or 60Hz) similar to the technology employed by kinetically powered watches.
The infrastructure for this communication is also undergoing development as technologies such as powerline carrier — running a data signal along mains voltage cables — are becoming more predictably feasible.
Although less obvious as a technology that will impact on EAM or SCM, biometrics is nonetheless specifically relevant around areas of access control. Various national infrastructure sites need to be able to control who has access to specific areas such as control rooms and there is often a need to control who has access to assets throughout the supply chain. The ability to identify individuals using biometrics that offer a high degree of accuracy is important when developing a checklist of approved personnel for a given site or task.
GPS-based technologies are rapidly becoming more cost effective and more accurate. This accuracy will leap forward as a result of projects such as the Galileo project. Accuracy is important for tagging elements underground such as pipework and means it can be used for precise location finding.
The reduction in the cost of GPS has been matched by an increase in the familiarity people have with the technology — GPS tagged vehicles, personnel and high value assets are much less likely to be lost in the future.
There is a constant demand for greater bandwidth and as standards like 3G give way to WiMax and 4G, the transfer of large amounts of data over large distances will become more feasible. For EAM this holds the promise of a worker in the field having a two-way communication with base in real-time, uploading imagery and video as well as using specialist applications. Much of this will be dependent upon the choices made by governments when it comes to deploying national communications infrastructure.
Several themes run throughout these technologies. For many businesses the drop in the cost of hardware is key to enabling them to deploy the technology beyond a pilot level. There is then the issue of selection — choosing the right technology as many vie for dominance of a market. This carries with it many of the negative associations from previous investments in 3G or WAP, which may never have been fully realised.
Governments also have a key role to play. Their input into the direction of national communications infrastructure will have a profound and long term effect on the development of EAM — effectively directing the industry into one route or another.
All of this means that in the boardrooms of businesses across the world, EAM and SCM will move up the corporate IT agenda and will indeed have an impact on operations and beyond. The promise of improved return on assets, and of doing more, cheaper, better and faster will keep business scrutiny firmly focused on assets and supply chains.
This means that those managers tasked with optimising and improving supply chains will need to become increasingly more conversant with a wide range of IT and telecommunications issues, applying them as necessary to their practices. RFID and GPS will probably lead this application but as EAM and SCM evolve into highly complementary disciplines, undoubtably other technologies will follow.
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