In companies that make intensive use of business assets in their operation, managing these assets efficiently is undoubtedly one of the main challenges they face. Projects related to asset management, whether for the incorporation of new elements or the updating and maintenance of existing ones, play a vital role in the organization.
Taking into account good practices in Asset Maintenance Project Management to achieve improved service levels and reduce costs can have a huge impact on the return on investment of assets throughout their life cycle, impacting directly on the income statement and profitability of the company.
Why invest in Project Management in asset management?
In recent times, after the last economic crisis and with the uncertainty of the effects that the crisis produced by COVID-19 may have on the incipient recovery, most companies are facing tremendous pressure in economic terms.
The optimisation of their asset management is generally motivated by the need to reduce their operating costs (OPEX) in an environment where investments (CAPEX) are also going to be very limited. Furthermore, in many cases it will not yet have been possible to address the renewal of assets, which will result in an added problem of asset aging.
Therefore, being able to manage large inventories of assets, many of them aged, reducing maintenance and operating costs and limiting investments becomes the main driving force to implement an asset maintenance Project Management to achieve maximum efficiency.
Other aspects that are often great motivators are:
- Improve control and management of suppliers.
- Compliance with increasingly demanding regulations.
- Management of risks associated with assets.
- Support to corporate projects: digital transformation, sustainability, environmental initiatives, etc.
- Rapid growth of the company, both organically and mainly through acquisitions.
Best practices in PM for maintenance
When it comes to implementing effective maintenance project management, it is logically necessary to know the company’s starting point in order to establish objectives on which to implement an optimisation and continuous improvement plan.
Both in companies that are lagging behind, which until now did not have adequate asset management systems, and in those that do have them but are forced to optimize them due to circumstances, these are some of the key recommendations to improve performance:
- Improve communication, integration and interoperability between different departments and systems, eliminating management and information silos, both internally and with suppliers, collaborators and external agencies.
- Align the objectives of asset management with the objectives of the organization, aligning and controlling the impact of asset management and maintenance on the economic and financial objectives of the company.
- Invest intelligently in EAM asset management software solutions that enable decision making based on relevant information obtained in real time. These solutions allow the evolution from reactive management to predictive models that greatly improve efficiency.
- Incorporate expert profiles, both internal and external, that provide their experience in different fields of asset management, such as in the areas of purchasing and supplier selection, security, regulations, energy efficiency, etc.
Retain Strategy in Maintenance Project Management
Retain’s strategy to implement an effective Maintenance Project Management is based on four pillars:
- Proactivity.
- Information.
- Transparency.
- Evolution and continuous improvement.
Based on these four pillars, a work dynamic is established in four phases, from the analysis and assesment of the current situation for decision making, to the operation and continuous improvement phase.
Assesment and decision-making
This first phase of analysis and information exchange aims at establishing clear and measurable objectives for the development of the project. The main coordinates in this phase are:
- Assets and business.
- Regulations.
- Operations.
- Resources.
- Organization and processes.
Implementation of the system
We work on a digital environment based on our Retain EAM platform in a three-phase implementation process:
- Parameterization, understood as the identification, organization and initial loading of data and documents into the system. This parameterization is itself an asset of great value for the company.
- Planning, configuring the activity through maintenance workflows.
- Integration and interoperability with other internal and external company management systems.
Information analysis
In order to effectively manage anything it is essential to have useful information for decision making. In this phase, different dashboards and dynamic reports are defined and configured that allow us to monitor different indicators such as
- Service Level KPIs.
- Costs KPIs.
- Investment KPIs.
Assessment and optimization
As we obtain relevant information about the performance in the different areas of asset management and compare it with the defined objectives, we can establish optimization measures and even an improvement in the objectives that will be directly reflected in the company’s budgets.
Want to know more about our Maintenance Project Management solutions? Contact us and let us advise you on how to get the most out of your assets.
