The Maintenance Team's Guide to EAM: From Basics to Best Practices

Do you ever find it challenging to keep track of all the equipment and assets that your business relies on? Well, that's where Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) comes in. EAM is a solution that can help you manage everything from machines to property and vehicles.

What is EAM?

Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) is a comprehensive solution that helps businesses manage their equipment and assets, from machines to property and vehicles. EAM provides visibility over assets and equipment, enabling businesses to make the most of their asset investments by making better maintenance decisions, improving day-to-day efficiencies, and enhancing compliance.

EAM includes a mix of software, services, and systems that enable organizations to track asset-related data, including maintenance and compliance. EAM software can be tailored to meet specific business needs, and it typically includes features such as asset management, maintenance management, inventory management, work order management, and reporting.

One of the primary benefits of EAM is its ability to help businesses take a strategic approach to their assets. When combined with enterprise resource planning (ERP), EAM can provide a complete picture of asset-related data and support strategic decision-making. By giving visibility into the data required to manage and maintain assets, businesses can make better decisions about their assets, which can help to optimize performance, reduce costs, and enhance overall efficiency.

In addition, EAM software can help businesses keep track of compliance requirements, such as health, safety, and environmental (HSE) regulations. EAM can also help businesses manage the details of maintenance, which can help to reduce downtime and improve overall asset performance. By tracking maintenance actions, including technician certifications and other important information, businesses can ensure compliance with industry standards, such as ISO 5500 and PAS 55.

Overall, EAM is an essential solution for any business that relies on assets to generate revenue. By implementing EAM software, businesses can gain greater visibility into asset performance, reduce downtime, and improve overall efficiency. Additionally, EAM can help businesses take a strategic approach to their assets, supporting long-term growth and success.

So why do you need EAM?

EAM provides comprehensive visibility over your assets and equipment, which can help you to make better maintenance decisions, improve day-to-day efficiencies, and enhance compliance. By leveraging EAM software, businesses can take a more strategic view of their assets, which can support long-term growth and success.

One of the most significant benefits of EAM is its ability to optimize asset performance. By tracking and analyzing asset-related data, such as maintenance history, utilization rates, and overall health, businesses can identify opportunities for improvement and take proactive measures to prevent issues before they occur. This approach, known as predictive maintenance, can help to reduce downtime and minimize disruptions to your operations.

In addition to improving asset performance, EAM can help businesses optimize inventory management, reduce costs, and improve overall efficiency. With EAM software, businesses can track inventory levels, monitor stock levels, and order parts automatically when stock falls below predetermined levels. This can help to reduce costs and eliminate the risk of stockouts, which can lead to downtime.

Moreover, EAM can help businesses enhance compliance by tracking regulatory requirements and ensuring that maintenance tasks are performed correctly and on time. This can help businesses avoid costly fines and penalties and demonstrate compliance with industry standards.

In summary, EAM is a critical solution for businesses that rely on assets to generate revenue. By providing comprehensive visibility and empowering businesses to take a strategic approach to their assets, EAM can help to optimize asset performance, reduce costs, and improve overall efficiency.

Who benefits from EAM?

The benefits of EAM are numerous. EAM helps keep your assets running reliably and efficiently, support health, safety, and environmental (HSE) compliance, and enables asset-based decision-making at the right levels of the organization. By managing the details of maintenance, EAM can help you reduce turn time for shutdowns or minimize stoppages due to part stockouts or labor shortages. It can also help increase productivity and capacity while minimizing scrap rates and issues with product quality. Plus, it helps you track the maintenance actions you have taken, including how your maintenance technicians are certified, enabling compliance with ISO 5500 and PAS 55 standards.

Not only can EAM support everyday decisions, but it can also help you deliver on high-level strategic goals. For example, it can enable proactive maintenance, support asset lifecycle management (ALM), or improve operational equipment effectiveness (OEE). EAM can support maintenance strategies that allow you to use predictive criteria to plan your maintenance schedule proactively. You can also use EAM to support ALM, enabling you to “map your future” by understanding how your assets help you to deliver current and future products, services, and revenue. EAM can even enhance your overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by combining EAM data and ERP data with equipment performance data.

EAM vs CMMS: What's the difference?

Now, you may have heard of a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). It's essential to understand that EAM is different from CMMS in that it includes capabilities for inventory management, finance, and even human resources (HR) – helping to support your business's wider strategy. EAM solutions can even function as a complete ERP software system for asset-intensive organizations that wholly rely on their equipment or capital/fixed assets to generate revenue.

Finding the right EAM solution

Selecting the right EAM solution is critical to the success of your asset management strategy. A good EAM solution should not only meet your current needs, but also provide a flexible and scalable platform to support future growth and evolving business requirements. It's also important to choose the right partner to help you implement the EAM solution, as their expertise and experience can make a significant difference in the success of the implementation.

If you are looking for a robust and reliable EAM solution, IFS EAM software is an excellent choice. It offers a comprehensive suite of features, including asset management, maintenance management, inventory management, and work order management, all of which can be configured to meet your specific needs. Additionally, IFS EAM software provides deep insights into asset performance, health, and utilization, enabling you to make data-driven decisions that support your maintenance and asset management strategies.

At Astra Canyon Group, we specialize in helping businesses evaluate, select, and implement IFS EAM solutions. Our team of experts has extensive experience working with EAM solutions, and we can help you evaluate your needs, select the right solution, and ensure a smooth and successful implementation. With our help, you can maximize the benefits of IFS EAM software and take your asset management strategy to the next level.

So, if you're interested in exploring IFS EAM software or need help evaluating and implementing an EAM solution, contact us at Astra Canyon Group. We'll be happy to discuss your needs and help you find the right solution for your business.