Effective Asset management
Anything that brings a benefit to the company is an asset, tangible assets (like buildings or equipment) and intangible assets (like copyrights or brand awareness). So, when we talk about asset management, we may also be referring to financial asset management.
Either way, the aim of asset management is to extract the highest possible return from each investment and thus make the company more competitive.
At Sunrise Facilities Management, we are focused on the management of tangible assets. In this context, physical asset management encompasses all phases of the assets’ life cycle. Planning what can be useful for the company’s objectives, acquiring new assets, monitoring their performance over time, and deciding when to replace them.
Asset management coordinates the life cycle of assets. This involves assessing opportunities and risks at every point in time to achieve the desired performance.
While asset management is concerned with managing the entire life cycle of each piece of equipment, costs, and depreciation, etc., maintenance management is a continuous process to improve the availability, reliability, safety, and condition of physical assets during their useful life.
Many companies tend to focus on the third stage, where the asset influences the company’s performance. However, neither phase should be overlooked. Take the aviation industry, for example, where airlines have to order aircraft years in advance for each route, ensure they are kept safe, and provide passenger comfort.
But just as important, if not more important, than knowing the life cycle of assets is having an estimate of their useful life. Only then can you know if the asset “still has a lot to give” or if it is in its decline phase. This type of data is essential to decide whether to repair or replace an asset that begins to show signs of failure.
How to choose an asset maintenance management strategy?
Over the asset’s useful life, it is important to choose the right maintenance strategy for each asset. But again, you need to take a holistic view and consider the entire asset portfolio – not just each asset in isolation. Therefore, the first step in choosing a maintenance strategy is to identify, locate, and assess the condition of each asset.
This first assessment is essential to first understand what the appropriate conditions to operate each piece of equipment are, next, it allows you to classify them according to their criticality, which is essential to define priorities.
Next, you need to analyse the potential causes of failure, each predictive or preventive service should correspond to a specific cause of breakdown to ensure no work is done in vain.
