Enterprise Asset Management software is simply software that helps an enterprise manage its assets.
By Enterprise we’re talking about an organisation, company or business. The enterprise in this context could consist of a group of businesses or entities - the scope of the enterprise is really defined by the scope of the assets to be included within the EAM software. For example, a railway might use the same EAM software for management of the infrastructure managed by the infrastructure manager, and the rolling stock managed by the rolling stock operator.
By Assets we mean the tangible or intangible things that add value or cost, owned or controlled by an enterprise. Depending on the enterprise this could include software, bridges, whole buildings, pumps, machines, tools, furniture etc.
By Asset Management we are talking about the overall management system of an enterprise to coordinate activities to deliver its strategic objectives.
There’s often confusion between Asset management and managing assets. Managing assets is about delivering interventions - specifically how we use, maintain, repair, replace the assets. Asset management is much broader and covers the whole enterprise (although from the perspective of the assets). When we talk about Enterprise Asset Management Software, the software is about managing assets, but for it to work you must have a handle of your wider asset management capability.
Instead of EAM systems, some people refer to Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS). While it’s arbitrary whether the software is called EAMS or CMMS, CMMS systems tend to be more focused on maintenance activities and EAMS tend to address more strategic decision making.
Typical (not exhaustive or exclusive) functionalities of an Enterprise Asset Management software
Asset Register: highest level a reliable list of the assets, reflecting the asset breakdown structure. Often as a database or repository that stores information about all the assets, including their specifications, maintenance history, and criticality.
Work Order Management: The ability to create, assign, and track work orders for maintenance tasks, including preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, inspections, and repairs.
Maintenance Scheduling: The capability to create maintenance schedules based on asset usage, manufacturer recommendations, or regulatory requirements. This feature helps plan maintenance activities in advance, ensuring timely interventions.
Inventory Management: The ability to manage spare parts and inventory levels associated with maintenance activities. This can generally support tracking stock levels, reordering, and managing supplier information.
Performance Monitoring: The ability to monitor asset performance indicators such as downtime, uptime, mean time between failures (MTBF), and mean time to repair (MTTR). This helps identify trends, assess asset health, and proactively address potential issues.
Reporting and Analytics: Some ability to create reports and analytics on asset performance, maintenance costs, work order history, and other relevant metrics. This information supports decision-making, budgeting, and continuous improvement efforts.
Mobile Access: usually some way of accessing some of the functionality remotely by mobile device. This tends to be about technicians having access to work orders, update maintenance records, and retrieve asset information while on the go.
Cost: some ability to hold information about the cost of the assets. This could be very simple unit rates or in some. Ore advanced organisations can include more detailed cost factors including labour rates and hours required, operational costs (direct like energy cost or carbon cost and indirect like associated cost within control rooms).
Risk: some ability to map corporate risk registers to asset specific risks. In some organisations this can be linked to the maintenance through Risk Based Maintenance scheduling. Sometimes this can be used to inform operators and maintenance staff of specific assets risks and how to manage them. Often this isn’t dynamically linked, but asset risks in the EAM software can be used to support the strategic management of risk (threats and opportunities).
Asset Health: typically linked to Reliability Availability Maintainability Safety (RAMS) analysis and performance monitoring, the asset health is a specific measure of the condition of the asset and is used to inform the decision making and asset management planning.
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