Asset performance management

Increase your asset performance by closing the asset management loop with the Withthegrid AMI platform

Closing the loop

Managing risks and realizing ESG (environmental, social, and governance) goals are the core of any asset-intensive company. Successfully achieving this requires a clearly defined asset management process. This process consists of four steps:

1.

Defining a strategy

2.

Connecting the strategy

3.

Analyzing the system

4.

Acting on the observed results

1. Defining a strategy

This starts by answering a set of questions. What are the overall goals of the company? What level of risk is acceptable? What reliability and availability targets do we set for our assets? What are the reputational risks to consider? Based on this, a corporate risk matrix is defined. The matrix helps identify the assets for which actions are needed to meet the goals and manage the risks.

2. Connecting the strategy

This step connects the assets to the strategy. For each asset (category) a specific maintenance concept is applied:

Reactive maintenance: fixing the asset when it breaks
Preventative maintenance: maintaining the asset to avoid breakdown.
Predictive maintenance: Based on real-time condition data estimate when the machine will break down and carry out repairs before breakdown. Assets of the same type can have different maintenance schedules because of differences in use, strain or other influencing factors.

It is clear that a more sophisticated maintenance strategy reduces yearly repair costs and increases asset availability

3. Analyzing the system

Once all assets are connected to a strategy it is essential to be able monitor it in real-time. IoT is critical for this. Assets are now continously monitored instead of periodically. Also, it decreases the workload for scarce tecnical personnel and reduces CO2 emissions from avoided inspections.

Real-time insights gives the possibility to have 24/7 insights into the following questions:

Is the required asset availability achieved?
Are there unexpected outages?
Is the (manual) maintenance schedule being carried out on time?
Which subset of assets are showing the highest deviation from expectations?
Which asset do we expect to fail in the future?

Depending on the size of a company specific monitoring dashboards can be used for each role.

4. Acting on the analysis

The last step is essential to improve the process: closing the loop. Based on the analysis the organization can act so that the strategy can be improved. Maybe an inspection frequency needs to be increased? A setting of an asset adjusted remotely? An asset replaced? An additional asset installed?