ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

Abrar Haider

School of Computer and Infrmation science, University of South Australia,

Mawson Lakes, Adelaide, SA 5095, Australia

Professor andy Koronios

School of Computer and Infrmation science, University of South Australia,

Mawson Lakes, Adelaide, SA 5095, Australia

Keywords: Asset Management, Asse

t Maintenance, Asset Lifecycle Management

Abstract: Manufacturing and production environment is subjected to

radical change. Impetus to this change has been

fuelled by intensely competitive liberalised markets; with technological advances promising enhanced

services and improved asset infrastructure and plant performance. This emergent re-organisation has a direct

influence on economic incentives associated with the design and management of asset equipment and

infrastructures, for continuous availability of these assets is crucial to profitability and efficiency of the

business. As a consequence, engineering enterprises are faced with new challenges of safeguarding the

technical integrity of these assets, and the coordination of support mechanisms required to keep these assets

in running condition. At present, there is insufficient understanding of optimised technology exploitation for

realisation of these processes; and theory and model development is required to gain understanding that is a

prerequisite to influencing and controlling asset operation to the best advantage of the business. This paper

aims to make a fundamental contribution to the development and application of ICTs for asset management,

by investigating the interrelations between changing asset design, production demand and supply

management, maintenance demands, asset operation and process control structures, technological

innovations, and the support processes governing asset operation in manufacturing, production and service

industries. It takes lifecycle perspective of asset management by addressing economic and performance

tradeoffs, decision support, information flows, and process re-engineering needs of superior asset design,

operation, maintenance, decommissioning, and renewal.

1 INTRODUCTION

Management of plant and equipment assets to

maintain peak performance is vital for productivity

and profitability of a manufacturing business. That is

why businesses strive for developing best practices,

advanced software applications, hardware, cutting

edge management practices to manage and keep

these vital assets in operating conditions. Several

concepts, strategies and methodologies have been

developed to address the continuously changing and

increasingly complex manufacturing and production

paradigms. However recent research shows that

manufacturing systems, which are getting

increasingly complex due to technological advances;

do not provide an elevated level of customer

satisfaction in terms of performance and

effectiveness as their operation and support is also

getting extremely costly (Blanchard 1997).

Asset management entails design and

com

missioning of assets, operation and

simultaneous addressing of maintenance needs

arising from the operations of assets, and consequent

decision support for asset renewal or

decommissioning. Increased business automation

along with the continuously changing operating

conditions makes asset management increasingly

intricate and multifarious as it increases their

vulnerability by exposing them to disruptions and

interruptions of various kinds (Sandberg 1994;

Albino et al 1998). For example, a typical water

pump station in Australia is located away from

major infrastructure and immediate transportation

and labour is generally limited, equipment on the

station are specialised and the demand for water

supply is continuous for twenty four hours a day,

seven days a week. This requires continuous

monitoring of asset operation in order to sense asset

312

Haider A. and Koronios A. (2005).

ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK.

In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 312-322

DOI: 10.5220/0002531803120322

 SciTePress

failures as soon as possible. However, early fault

detection is not of much use if it is not backed up

with the ready availability of spares and

maintenance expertise. Therefore, the expectations

placed on water station by its stakeholders are not

just of continuous availability of operational assets,

but also of the efficiency and reliability of support

processes. Elimination and control of these

production irregularities and disturbances is

necessary for JIT (Just in Time) production and

service provision, agile manufacturing, and customer

satisfaction. However, as businesses are beginning

to recognise the importance of these turbulences,

weaknesses of traditional approaches to asset

equipment are coming to forefront (Lawrence 1999).

Bamber et al (1999) posit that asset maintenance is

considered as a support function, non-productive and

a non core process that adds little value to the

business. Jonsson (1999) argues that this is largely

due to lack of acknowledgement of the direct

connection between maintenance and profitability.

Al-Najjar (1996) goes a step further and claims that

most businesses do not have a significant control of

costs incurred by planned or unplanned stoppages

and quality problems. However, not only that asset

management and for that matter maintenance has a

direct link and impact on business direction and

strategy, at the same time management needs to have

a lifecycle perspective of asset utilisation to make

rational decisions to reduce the chances of errors in

investment and production management. Generally

tactical and operational decision made by managers

have a short term focus, for example, asset

procurement decisions are based on acquisition cost

only and maintenance requirements are totally

ignored, whereas, a significant amount of the annual

operational costs are attributed to maintenance costs.

In addition, asset operation, behaviour, and

maintenance knowledge gained is not used for

decision support for future investments, projects,

and asset management initiatives. In effect, asset

management strategies have little provision for

sustainability of long term strategic business

direction; consequently businesses are,

a. Unable to forecast and monitor the usage of

their assets effectively

b. Unaware of resource capabilities and its

impact on other areas of business.

c. Not able to mange resources properly due to

duplication and underutilisation

d. Unaware of the cost effective maintenance

strategies that best suit the business

e. Not able to fully utilise information captured

to ensure smooth asset operation

f. Not able to plan an effective “exit strategy”

for obsolete assets; through technology refresh

or through end of need.

g. Not able to provide a credible charge-back

system to allocate maintenance costs to the

business lines and thus ensure that everyone is

involved in avoiding redundancy and wastage

of efforts.

This research paper investigates how ICTs

(Information and Communication Technologies)

provide for an integrated approach to asset

management. The resulting business model

encompasses cost effective asset operation and

maintenance with improved performance levels. It

takes lifecycle perspective of asset management by

addressing economic and performance tradeoffs,

decision support, information flows, and process re-

engineering needs of superior asset design,

operation, maintenance, decommissioning, and

renewal.

2 ASSET MANAGEMENT

There are different views about asset management,

which are, however, largely dependent upon the

nature of the industry that the business operates in

and what that the business considers as an ‘asset’.

An asset lifecycle starts at the time of designing the

manufacturing or production system, and typically

illustrates, stages such as, asset commissioning,

operation, maintenance, decommissioning and

replacement (figure 1).

Asset

Planning

Design

Asset Asset

Usage Modernization

Asset Decommissioning and Replacement

Asset Accounting and Management

Asset

Maintenance

Figure 1: Asset Lifecycle Perspective

Source Grobholz (1988: p. 55)

Table 1 below further breaks down these stages and

presents a description of the activities associated

with each stage of an asset lifecycle management.

ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

313

Table 1: Asset Lifecycle Management Perspective

Source (Moubray 2003)

Functions

Description

Functional specifications

Decide what each asset must do to make the production and

manufacturing processes value added

2 Design specifications Decide what the configuration of the asset must be in order to

meet functional specifications

3 Acquisition and deployment Acquire and deploy the assets

4 Maintenance Sustain and where necessary replenish the assets in such a way

that they continue to make the required contribution to the value-

adding process

5 Scorekeeping Identify key performance indicators that show how well the

assets are making their required contribution to the value adding

process

6 Disposal Dispose of the assets when they can no longer fulfil the

required functions or when they are no longer needed

7 Compliance Monitor and ensure compliance with laws and regulations

governing the use of the assets

2.1 Asset

Assets can be mobile as well as fixed. Mobile assets

may change their location geographically as,

whereas fixed assets remain static, such as

manufacturing plants, railway engines and carriages,

aircrafts, water pumps, and oil and gas rigs.

Nevertheless, the following definition guides this

paper.

“A physical component of a manufacturing,

production or service facility, which has value,

enables services to be provided, and has an

economic life of greater than twelve months” (IIM

2003).

2.2 Asset

In consonance with the above definition of assets,

asset management is

“the set of disciplines, methods, procedures and

tools to optimise the whole life business impact of

costs, performance and risk exposures associated

with the availability, efficiency, quality, longevity

and regulatory/safety/environmental compliance of a

company’s physical assets”. (Woodhouse 2001)

2.3 Asset Management is a Strategic

Process

Asset management is a strategic process, as

informed and proactive view on asset performance

and associated costs provides for the necessary

underpinnings for effective enterprise wide resource

planning and management. Market demand and

supply dynamics derive product and services design,

and this product and services design derives

production. Production specifies the types and

design of assets to be used in production along with

the operational workload of how much to produce.

Operational workload and asset design specify the

maintenance demands to keep the assets in running

condition, whereas, maintenance determines the

future production capacity of the assets. Therefore,

asset management ought to be derived from the

business goals and objectives; though it is itself

dependent on methodical evaluation of

manufacturing systems performance, workload, and

associated costs. Fundamental aim of asset

management processes is the continuous availability

of service, production and manufacturing provisions

of assets. The asset management process is policy

driven, information intensive, and is aimed at

achieving cost effective peak asset performance.

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3 CHANGING FACES OF

MANUFACTURING PARADIGM

Manufacturing and production of products and

services is subjected to intense changes in

technology and intensely varying market demands

(Matson and McFarlane 1999; Beach et al 2000).

The resulting effect on industries is one of intense

competition that dictates a shift towards renewal of

products and services at regular intervals, which

consequently is forcing businesses to innovate and

update their offerings with added value and features.

Shortened product lifecycles and continuous

updating of products demands increased and

enhanced asset operation capacity, which means

assets also have to be upgraded continuously.

Therefore, this continuous renewal on one hand

impacts corporate and management strategies; and

on the other demands equally innovative

manufacturing and production paradigms,

production philosophies, and processes. According

to Taskinen and Smeds (1999), technological

advances are fast disappearing stock to production

business models. Supply and demand mechanisms

are changing so fast that, it is becoming critical for

manufacturing strategies embrace just in time types

of philosophies. Automotive and electronic products

like cars, mobiles and computers are some examples

of this variation in supply and demand. In these

circumstances, it’s the ability of manufacturing

businesses to adapt quickly to changing

circumstances that will differentiate the leaders from

the also rans (Forsythe 1997).

Koc and Lee (2003) summarise these changes in

manufacturing paradigm and predicts that the

emergent paradigm is ‘e-intelligent’ (Figure 2). The

authors argue that the so called e-intelligent

paradigm is the one in which there is continuous and

seamless flow of information, aimed at real time

access to all the stakeholders of a business process to

increase the overall business efficiency,

responsiveness, and agility. This means a shift that is

not just outwardly innovative, as in terms of product

innovation, but is also inwardly creative, that is to

use the same technologies for process re-engineering

and innovation. Lee (2003) terms this shift as the

“5Ps,” namely predictability, producibility,

productivity, pollution prevention, and performance.

These characteristics establish the properties of the

future e-enabled integrated asset management

paradigm. In essence, the emergent e-intelligent

paradigm demands an elevated level of expertise and

technology that could allow for realisation of

distributed processes which contribute towards value

creation for the business.

In such manufacturing and production environments

that are riddled with continuous change, stability in

manufacturing and quality processes needs to be

materialised as soon as possible (Warnecke and

Hueser 1994). In businesses like utilities, where

demand for products or a service is continuous for

twenty four hours day, disruptions and interruptions

have a devastating effect on revenues as well as

customer relationship (Almgren 1999). Therefore

businesses not only need to keep their vital assets

that are utilised to produce goods and services in

operating condition, but at the same time need to

have reliable and efficient support processes. This,

however, is a daunting task, for managing these vital

assets is much more than just automation of existing

processes or compilation of existing information. A

comprehensive asset management strategy entails

changes in ways the business is conducted, decision

are made, data is collected and processed, and

information is communicated within the organisation

and with the business partners. Effective asset

management therefore, requires strong technological

and informational base that realises quality business

processes and communication channels within the

business, as well as with external stakeholders such

as business partners, customers, governmental

watchdogs and others.

1980 1990 2000 2010

Product Focus 3Cs (Chips, Computers,

Communications) & Intelligent

Mechatronics

Products that think

link

Products that Learn, Grow,

Reconfigure, & Sustain

Manufacturing Focus Factory Automation (Flexibility) Business Automation

(Agility)

e-factory & e-Automation

Innovation Microelectronics

Computing

Embedded Intelligence

Smart Netware

E-intelligence Systems

Figure 2: Evolution in Product Innovation and Manufacturing

Source (Koc and Lee 2003)

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4 ROLE OF ASSET

MAINTENANCE IN ASSET

MANUFACTURING

In the asset lifecycle, asset design is influenced by

the types of products or services that the business

provides; the speed and quality with which these

products and services are produced; and the

financial, legislative, and environmental constraints

that the business operates in. Asset operation,

however, is influenced by number of actors such as

sales forecasting, production workload, decisions on

resource allocation, and the physical operating

environment. Asset maintenance runs

simultaneously with asset operation, and is aimed at

ensuring the continuous and reliable availability of

operational assets. While, maintenance activities

have been carried out ever since advent of

manufacturing; modelling of an all inclusive and

efficient maintenance system has yet to come to

fruition (Duffuaa and Al-Sultan 1997; Yamashina

and Otani 2001). This is mainly due to continuously

changing and increasing complexity of asset

equipment, and the stochastic nature or the

unpredictability of the environment in which assets

operate, along with the difficulty to quantify the

output of the maintenance process itself (Duffuaa

1999).

Asset maintenance is the most complex sub process

of asset management, as it engages a number of

different actions and tasks. The aim of maintenance

however, is to maintain the operational reliability of

assets. Maintenance strategies and methodologies

vary according to the types of assets used by

different industries. These strategies include

condition-based maintenance, failure-based

maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive

maintenance, reactive maintenance and corrective

maintenance (i.e. Horner et al., 1997; Moubray,

1997; Nakajima, 1989). These strategies represent

four different maintenance philosophies. Table 2

presents the scope, objectives, and application

modes of these viewpoints. It is evident from table 2

that these ideologies represent two main approaches

to maintenance, i.e. proactive and reactive. This

factor represents the most important determinant of

the way a business views asset management, for

these approaches illustrate whether the business

views asset maintenance as an ‘investment’ or a

‘cost’ that is required to keep the assets in operating

conditions. Businesses that view maintenance as an

investment, manage their assets proactively and their

decision making corresponds to a preventative or

predictive stance. They prefer to invest in time based

periodic maintenance and aim for fixing a failure

condition as it develops, thereby aiming to sustain

and improve production efficiency. On the other

hand those businesses that view maintenance as a

cost believe in corrective approaches and operate

their assets to failure. This view is further presented

in the survey conduct by Intentia (2004) (Table 3).

Table 2: Reliability Paradigms

Source (Honkanen 2004)

RCM

TPM Reliability

Engineering

Control

Engineering

Scope

Machine functionality

Machine efficiency

Machine durability

Machine controllability

Maintenance

objective according

to paradigm

Keeping the machine

functionality at the

required level

Maximising the

machine capacity by

equipment efficiency

Enhancing the machine

life-time and reliability

Maintaining the

production process state

Failure or failed

state

Inability to fulfil user-

required functional

capability

Loss or reduction of a

capability with regard to

optimal performance

Loss of a function Statistically abnormal

process state

Life-cycle phase

being applied

At machine design and

operation phase

At the machine

operation phase

At the machine design

phase

At the machine

operation phase

Context Single machines, users,

and plant

Single machines, users,

and plant

Multiple machines, users,

and plants

Single production

process

Applicable methods

Proactive maintenance

by preventing failures

before they first occur

Personnel participation

in continuous

improvement for

preventing sudden and

chronic failures

Design-out failures with

enhanced component

design and materials

Control of process

states and compensation

of disturbances by

mathematical

algorithms.

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316

The survey reveals that 49.8% of all survey

respondents indicated that they were of the view that

maintenance was an investment. On the whole, large

organizations (over 1000 employees) were the most

likely to view maintenance as an investment, with

56.4% holding that view. A similar percentage of

organizations with 501-1000 employees were of the

same opinion (56.4%). Small organizations (under

250 employees) were the most likely to view

maintenance as a cost (41.8%). The high percentage

of small organizations viewing maintenance as a

cost indicates that smaller organizations are more

likely to work in breakdown mode rather than in a

preventive or predictive mode. Another important

indicator revealed in this survey is that large sized

businesses follow a proactive approach to asset

management; since they have the financial luxury to

invest in support technological infrastructure that

enables them to be proactive. On the other hand,

small to medium sized business opt for reactive or

corrective maintenance, for they do not have the

necessary resources. Nevertheless, important point

to note is that these two divergent view points have

different expectations of support processes and have

different information needs for asset lifecycle

decision support. Nevertheless, maintenance strategy

is dependent upon the types of assets and nature of

industry, for example, for assets in airline industry,

or bridges and other infrastructures preventive

maintenance suits better, and for operational military

assets corrective maintenance is more useful. This,

however, is also dependent upon the availability of

maintenance expertise, financial constraints,

availability of spares, and the cost benefit analysis

and tradeoffs between asset maintenance and asset

renewal or upgrade.

Table 3: Maintenance is an Investment or a Cost

Source (Intentia 2004)

Organisation Size Strongly Agree

Cost

Generally

Agree

Cost

In-different Generally

Agree

Investment

Strongly Agree

Investment

1 – 250 12.1% 29.7% 12.6% 27.6% 17.6%

251 – 500 7.0% 25.2% 14.8% 31.3% 21.%

501 – 1000 7.9% 27.0% 9.5% 39.7% 15.9%

1000+ 14.5% 23.6% 5.5% 38.2% 18.2%

Total 10.6% 27.5% 11.9% 31.4% 18.4%

Physical

Assets

and

Automation

Systems

Physical

Assets

Management

and

Decision

Systems

Enterprise

Asset

Maintenance

System

Maintenance

Repair &

Operations

(MRO)

Procurement

System

Process Events

Data

Process

Advisories

Maintenance

Advisories

Work

Histories

Purchase

Order

Tracking

Sensor/Plant Measurements/Inspection Failure Models/Reliability Data

Condition/Performance Monitoring Reliability Program

Control

Parameters

Control

Data

Asset Calibration/

Tolerance

Transducer Configuration

Monitoring Setup

Inspection Routes

Asset Monitoring Variables

Reliability Data Models

Lifecycle Information

Asset usage

Data

Integrated Diagnosis and Prognosis

Supply Chain

Process Control &

Process Management

Maintenance Work &

Parts Management

Supply Chain

Business Goals & Strategies

Asset Advisory

Management

Enterprise Resource Planning

(ERP) System

Asset Management Process

Figure 3: Source (Adopted and Modified from Bever 2000)

ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

317

5 NATURE OF EMERGING ASSET

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Bever (2000) points out some of the intricacies of

asset management and its interrelationships with

other processes and systems (Figure 3). He argues

that maintenance strategies that once were run-to-

failure are now fast changing to being condition

based. There is a need to integrate asset management

systems and computerized maintenance management

systems (CMMS) to support maintenance

scheduling, maintenance workflow management,

inventory management, and purchasing; and to

integrate these functions with production scheduling,

and manufacturing. At the same time, businesses are

looking for ways to provide direct connections from

their asset management systems to Maintenance,

Repair, and Overhaul/Operations (MRO)

procurement systems, which may allow for paperless

purchasing of parts and offer considerable time and

cost savings compared with traditional purchasing

methods.

Sandberg (1994) argues that contemporary paradigm

demands an elevated ability and knowledge to

incessantly support asset management processes,

with support in terms of data acquisition, real-time

monitoring, and computer supported categorization

and recording of divergences from standard

operations. However, to support these objectives,

smart ICT based applications are needed to allow for

proactive asset management approaches, such as

performance degradation measurement, fault or

failure discovery, self maintenance, and remote

diagnostics. These features allow manufacturing and

process industries to guarantee an elevated asset and

process performance and ultimately eliminate

unnecessary system breakdowns (Lee 2003); thereby

stressing businesses to be more responsiveness and

agile in their quest for asset management. In the

emergent paradigm, businesses need to focus on two

areas; first, they need to manage assets from a

strategic perspective and treat them as business

enablers rather than managing them from a

maintenance perspective, and second, they need to

have a focused approach on the inter-relations of

asset management processes with other business

processes. This requires integration and

synchronization of management practices and

policies from specification of functional

specifications if an asset to asset decommissioning.

However, in order to achieve this businesses require,

a. Complete, current, and accurate information

on each asset, including its current

configuration, location, workload, health

status and history, and the physical

environment that it operates in.

b. A certain level of intelligence embedded with

the asset, such that it itself reports any

malfunctioning in its operating environment or

in its own behaviour.

c. An integrated approach to economic and

performance tradeoffs and lifecycle decisions,

through

(i) Organization of information relating to

asset condition and performance for

condition assessment and trend analysis;

(ii) Analytic models that predict future

changes in asset condition, as well as the

variations in support mechanisms to

forecast and plan for resources.

(iii) Cost benefit decision support for asset

repair, maintenance, renewal, and

decommissioning.

d. Legacy systems and applications for support

processes such as spares supply chain

management, maintenance workflow

management, customer relationship

management, and enterprise resource

planning.

6 AN ICT BASED ASSET

MANAGEMENT MODEL

From the above discussion it is evident that

businesses need to view assets as mission enablers,

which support and contribute towards attaining

organisational goals, realising business processes,

and adding value to productivity. An attempt to

resolve the issues at hand with a focus on only

technological aspects will not yield required results,

and it is therefore important to develop an

understanding of cultural, economic, and process

implications of asset operation; for each of these

factors impact the realisation of the others. At the

same time it is important to take a systems view of

the whole production paradigm, where asset

management acts a sub system within the whole

system of the business. This allows for

understanding the interrelations of the asset

management with other organisational systems and

also provides the foundations of assets as business

enablers. The figure 4 below presents a systems

view of the production paradigm that highlights the

interrelationships of asset usage and management. It

consists of three major areas, i.e. production, asset

design and asset maintenance. The figure describes

production acting on information inputs from sales

forecast and production schedules, or on

ICEIS 2005 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

318

Production Process Quality Management

Risk Management

Production

Asset Design

Asset

Maintenance

Asset Life Cycle Management;

Maintenance Economics, Accounting

and Tradeoffs; Logistics Support;

Configuration management

recommendations from research and development on

the launch of new products and services.

These forecasts recommendations have their roots in

other business activities such as marketing, business

strategy and direction. Nevertheless, these

indications from sales and R&D provide indicators

for the design of asset configuration and specify the

workload on assets to fulfil the requests of sales

forecasting. An important driver of asset design,

along with others, is cost or budgetary constraints.

Assets operate in changing physical environment

and with varying workload, which also impacts the

reliable and continuous operation of assets over a

period of time. Assets are mechanical, electrical or

constructed systems and have a finite life and as they

go through the process of deterioration. This

deterioration process is dependent upon production

system design parameters, workload, material used

in putting the assets together, and the environment

that they operate in. These parameters derive the

maintenance of assets; however, maintenance itself

is motivated by different cost and efficiency

assumptions, such as corrective maintenance,

periodic maintenance, proactive maintenance etc.

Maintenance in return recommends asset shutdown

schedules, changes to asset configuration, remnant

lifecycle of assets, asset decommissioning and

renewal, etc., which obviously impact the future

production, manufacturing and service provision

possibilities. The shaded areas in the above figure

describe the logical outputs from the interaction of

two sub systems, while the shaded area common

between all the three areas indicates the interrelation

of asset management process with other business

processes, such as supply chain management,

enterprise resource planning, and customer

relationship management.

Maintenance

Workflow

Management;

Plant Shutdown;

Asset Operation,

configuration, and

re-configuration

recommendations

Operational

Efficiency,

Resource

Allocation;

Production

Forecasting;

Production

Workflow

Management

Maintenance

Strategy; Asset

Performance

and Condition

Monitoring;

Process

Control

Figure 4: Systems View of Asset Management

Having a systems view facilitates a solution focus

rather than application focus of the issues at hand in

this paper. This solution focus provides a lifecycle

perspective of asset management rather than

focusing on a particular aspect of asset management,

such as asset maintenance. Asset management

therefore requires a systematic step by step approach

that not only addresses each stage of asset lifecycle

management, but at the same time contributes

towards the organisational goals and objectives.

Figure 5 presents an attempt to map the demands of

asset management process onto technology. In the

figure the left hand side illustrates the essential

elements of an asset lifecycle, whereas, the right

hand side provides the building blocks to address the

demands of the left hand side.

ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

319

Information Quality

and

Management

Quality

Management

Risk

Management

Business

Needs

Asset

Operation

Figure 5: Technological Approach to Asset Management

This approach demands certain level of intelligence

to be introduced at the asset level, such that the asset

predicts and determines its own maintenance

demands and triggers associated support processes.

As a matter of fact, the emerging paradigm demands

the assets to maintain their health and operational

capacity just like the human do to safeguard against

disease and loss of productivity. However, humans

could be considered as active machines since they

can process information, whereas assets are passive

and are unable to process information at their own.

Therefore, innovative mechanisms are needed to be

embedded with the assets that do not interrupt or

hamper asset performance in any way, but provide

the asset with an ability to ‘think for themselves’, for

example mounting devices on the assets that are

microprocessor equipped and are able to capture

information from asset condition monitoring sensors

and processing it. Such introduction of intelligence

will provide important information on operating

environment, and will also allow for monitor the

behaviour of asset operation; which could be used

by intelligent software applications to analyse trends

and performance behaviours. These trends and

analysis will lead to detection of a failure conditions

that constitute vital foundation for decision support

for asset life cycle management as well as for

initiation of asset support processes.

This framework has strategic orientations and

provides for standardisation of technology and

practice for business integration and process

innovation. It stresses standardization at the base

level, which allows for information integration,

exchange and interoperability within and between

systems at the processing level. This information

could then be used for the process innovation and

optimization. Mapping this framework on to asset

management paradigm advocates standardisation of

information and information acquisition systems at

the asset operation level. With this foundation, when

information moves to higher levels in the framework

it serves as facilitator for mission enabling asset

management. A detailed asset management model is

presented in the figure 6 below. This model presents

asset management as a core business activity and

describes an integrated asset management view with

other processes such as enterprise planning,

enterprise decision support, production, logistics and

customer relationship. This model integrates asset

management activities with operational and

administrative activities in the enterprise and

highlights the impacts of asset operation on

enterprise decision support and planning at each

stage in asset life cycle. It is quantitative and

information driven that describes asset management

in terms of the objectives of the corporate strategy.

This model has an ERP system at its core, as

contemporary ERP systems such as SAP R/3

incorporate asset management modules and thus

facilitate in the lifecycle management of assets

Process

Re-engineering

Information Interoperability,

Integration & Storage

Intelligent Applications

Smart Devices to Monitor Asset Condition

Asset Renewal,

Upgrade

Decommissionin

Asset Planning

Design

Asset

Maintenance

Resource

Management

Asset

Accounting

Lifecycle

Decisions

& Tradeoffs

ICEIS 2005 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

320

Specifies

Business Strategy a nd D irection

(Social, Political, Technological, Environmen tal , and Economic Forces;

Environmental Legislations)

Maintenance

Workflow

Impacts

Asset Design,

Location,

Configuration,

Operation, and

Service Levels

Production Workflow

Disaster Containmen t and Follow up

Monitor

Ex ec ute

Impr ov e

Production Planning

Sales Forecast; Product Innovation, Supply & Demand

Management, Custo mer Manage ment

Asset

Maintenance

System

Stakeholders

Needs

Strateg ic

Aud it

Business

Intelligence

Human Resource

Alignmen t

Financial Resource

Alignmen t

Operational &

Organisational

Alignmen t

IS Pol ic y

As s et R emnan t Li fe ,

Redesign/

Retir ement , As s et

Operation Cost

Benefit Analyses,

Asset Accounting,

Plant Shu tdown

Schedule

Condition Monitoring Production Execution& Accounting Ent erpr ise

Resource

Plan nin g

Maintenance Resource Allocation,

Spare Supp ly Chain Managemen t,

Inventory Managemen t, Work

Execution, Comple tion & Accounting

Production Planning ,

Resource Allocation,

Mate rial

Management,

Supply Chain

Management,

Work in Progress

Inventory

Drives

Risk Assessment & Mitigation Process Quality Manage ment

Information Quality & In teroperability

Operating Standards, Health & Sa fety Standards

Asset Manage ment Plan

Maintenance Recom mendations Maintenance Simu lation

Process Control & Manage ment

Asset Usage Profile

Failure Ana ly sis

Alarms &

N otific a t ion s

Integrated Condition

Assessment &

Analysis

Figure 6: ICT Enabled Asset Management Model

The model highlights the importance of

comprehensive information regarding the condition

of an asset as the necessary foundation of an

efficient asset management strategy. This

information provides the basis for asset operation

profiling that not only warns of an eminent failure

condition developing, but also helps in determining

the maintenance demands and future utilisation of

the asset. Maintenance information along with the

asset usage patterns and trend analyses aids in

enterprise decision support encompassing asset

renewal, up-gradation, asset depreciation,

replenishment and retirement. These indicators also

provide for planning of plant shutdown and changes

required in the design or configuration of an asset.

The model provides a strategic perspective to asset

management provides business mangers with vital

foundations for decision support such as what asset

to service and at what time; how will the asset

performance affect work management; what are the

financial implications of asset operation; and how to

reuse asset operation and maintenance knowledge

for future projects.

7 CONCLUSION

This paper illustrates that any attempt to managing

assets needs to have a systems perspective of the

entire business. This perspective aids business

managers in drawing an asset management strategy

that provides a life cycle perspective of assets as

mission enablers. It illustrates the ICT enabled

business blocks through out the asset lifecycle. The

model provides essential underpinnings for systems

development by indicating a road map for the asset

management process and the critical variables

required for efficient asset management.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper is a part of the research conducted for

CRC Integrated engineering Assets Management

(CIEAM), at the University of South Australia. Any

opinions, findings, and conclusions or

recommendations expressed in this material are

those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect

the views of the CIEAM.

ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

321

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