An EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) is a system that enables assets to be managed throughout their life cycle to maximise their potential use in business strategy. One of the main components of an EAM is the CMMS (Maintenance Management System), which allows the efficient management of maintenance plans, both preventive and predictive maintenance operations, as well as corrective maintenance operations, adapting itself as a reference solution for the control of equipment and installations of a company in any sector.
At this time, when many companies are tackling or have already advanced in their digital transformation projects, it is necessary to ask ourselves whether it is convenient to move asset maintenance systems to the cloud and what the advantages and disadvantages are.
Maintenance in asset management
The use of asset maintenance management tools within EAM systems aims to reduce the organisation’s costs while increasing the efficiency of physical assets. In short, it improves the efficiency of core activities and asset management processes, as well as the quality of performance.
These are some of the main benefits in the processes of asset maintenance management
- Asset management: identify, track, locate and analyze the company’s physical assets to maximize productivity and extend the life of the assets.
- Management work: tracking and managing work requests, planning and scheduling to maximize resources, improving productivity.
- Preventive maintenance: scheduling work for equipment maintenance.
- Materials management: monitoring and controlling the warehouse to ensure that the right amount of inventory exists, no more and no less.
- Purchasing: order of the right parts, as well as control of delivery times, payments to suppliers and reception of goods.
- Document management: a cloud-based document management system provides reliable and up-to-date access to asset information.
Cloud maintenance: advantages and disadvantages
Today, asset management from the cloud is the reality of maintenance in practically any organisation, whether the activity is outsourced or carried out autonomously. Cloud-based asset maintenance allows a company to control and manage all its assets at any time and from any location, ensuring that its managers, technicians and collaborators are in constant communication and informed of everything that is happening with the company’s assets.
It is a fundamental tool for improving the mobility of the various actors, since through the use of adaptive interfaces it is possible to work in an optimal way from any device, whether it is a desktop PC, a smartphone or a tablet. Furthermore, using innovative techniques, for example, based on interaction through QR codes, it is possible to facilitate operations for technicians, making their activity more efficient.
It also allows for the management of reports and alerts in real time for any type of asset, generating instantaneous warnings for the optimisation of times and responses. Firstly, communication is clear and transparent between the party representing the demand and the party providing the service, i.e. between the customer and the organisation. In the same way, conflicts between suppliers and the company are reduced.
A cloud-based EAM software allows the development of inventory management and maintenance of the different types of assets in the installations, keeping an online control of incidents and corrective, preventive and predictive maintenance.
The cloud also allows companies to outsource the technological infrastructure needed to host the software and thus pay for the solution as an operational expense and not as a capital investment.
Advantages of cloud maintenance
- Cost reduction. You pay for what you use.
- Scalable storage options according to need. Storage options can be extended to cover needs without problem.
- Automatic updates. No need for the IT department to worry about maintenance or payment for future upgrades.
- Remote access. Employees can access information wherever they are.
- Ease of implementation. There is no need to implement hardware and components that can take hours or days to install.
- Response time. With the cloud, a better response time is achieved than in most cases compared to a standard server.
- Sustainable service. Uses less energy than traditional data centres.
Disadvantages
Although there are not many disadvantages, there are some aspects that companies consider when making the jump to the cloud, such as
- Security of access to company information.
- Performance problems if the speed of connections is not adequate or if many users are accessing the server simultaneously.
- Need for a continuous and secure internet connection.
The current state of technology and communications and the selection of a solution with sufficient security guarantees, however, make it possible to overcome these drawbacks in most cases.
Retain in the cloud solutions
Retain offers a set of modular tools and solutions aimed at improving efficiency and reducing the cost of asset life.
Our platform is customisable and flexible, allowing it to adapt and connect with any system, both internal and external. Its modular design and its parameterisation capacity allow the easy creation of tailor-made solutions, covering the specific needs of each client. When it comes to hosting your own platform, Retain offers different solutions that adapt to any need and technological and security requirement of your company.
We work with physical and virtualised servers:
- Dedicated: exclusive server for the organization.
- Shared: economic solutions with total guarantee and security.
- Cloud: assigned and easily scalable space.
Our hosting services provide maximum availability and reliability for applications and their data:
- Our DPCs and system administrators comply with the ISO27001 standard.
- We perform hourly, daily and incremental backups.
- Adapted to the new European data protection regulations (RGPD).
Do you need more information? Contact us and a specialist will help you find the best solution in the cloud for the maintenance and management of your assets.
