What is Enterprise Asset Management?

Enterprise Asset Management or Plant Maintenance means "complete management of organizational assets through regular maintenance processing in order to have effective utilization of assets for better productivity and maximize the value returns".

Conventional Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) focus on asset maintenance – record keeping, tracking, maintenance planning, work orders, scheduling and cost management
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems extend this model to include resource management such as labor, subcontractors, external services procurement, materials, tools and equipment by incorporating integrated inventory & purchasing capabilities.

Enterprise Asset Management

Since there are many different types of plants and factories, the ways to maintain these facilities often vary. For example, a steel mill will have different machinery than a food processing plant. This means that each place of business generally has its own maintenance planning procedures and criteria. 

In any Plant or a factory, regular maintenance is required for Equipment, machinery, tools, fleets, production resources, fixed assets, Current assets etc.

In general,Maintenance activity can be of following types.

1) Preventive 
2) Breakdown
3) Corrective
4) Reliability centered maintenance (Reliability Engineering)
5) Condition based maintenance
6) Predictive Maintenance

Depending upon the business scenarios, maintenance periods, maintenance cycles are defined.

There are many tools and software products like IBM MAXIMO, Microsoft Dynamix AX, SAP EAM, IFS EAM are being utilized for plant maintenance activities and tracking the same. SAP EAM is the best application which is integrated with other application components of ERP.

SAP Plant maintenance/EAM can be integrated with asset performance management and document management utilities like Meridium/ blue celio etc.

Introduction to SAP PM

The R/3 Plant Maintenance (PM) module is the application component that provides a comprehensive software solution for all maintenance activities that are performed within a company.

Data and functions of all maintenance procedures performed within a company can be fully interconnected making this module closely integrated with other modules like Materials Management (MM), Production Planning (PP), Sales & Distribution (SD), Controlling (CO) ,Human Resource ( HR/CATS). 

The openness of the R/3 System enables you to use external systems that are integrated with the Plant Maintenance (PM) component, such as geographical information systems (GIS), computer-aided design (CAD) systems and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, Remote Crane Management Systems ( RCMS).

International standards of Asset Management : SAPPM/EAM complies with Asset management standards PAS55 and ISO 55000 series

SAP PM/EAM module is subdivided into following process and functions in order to cover the complete Maintenance process across industries.

1) Management of Technical Objects :

2) Maintenance Processing

3) Preventive Maintenance

4) Asset Management

5) Warranty Processing

6) Work Clearance Management.