ARC
STRATEGIES
By Robert Mick & Sid Snitkin
JUNE 2010
Asset Performance Management:
An IT Perspective
Executive Overview ... 3
Asset Performance Management - An IT Perspective ... 4
Role of IT in APM ... 9
Align APM IT with Your Business Priorities ... 11
Develop an APM IT Vision and Roadmap ... 12
Align Technology Trends with APM IT ... 15
Recommendations ... 19
IT Is Fundamental to Effective Asset Performance Management
Organizations Need an Appropriate APM IT Strategy
Project Performance Management
(PPM)
Asset Performance Management(APM)
Asset & Project Portfolio Management Handover Modification Requests Funded Projects New Facility Requests Intelligence & Analytics Environments Information Access Mobile Devices Secure Communication Mobile Backend Applications Domain Application Environments Business Processes Application Information APM Role-Based Environments Workflows Information Access APM Applications Intelligence & Analytics Information
Management Workflow & Integration MDM & Quality Mobility Application Development Deployment Monitoring Management Security Infrastructure Role-Based Environments
Collaborative Technology Platform
Businesses need an organized plan for Asset Performance Management IT systems (APM IT). That plan needs to recognize the broad nature of APM programs, the diversity of software applications used by APM practitioners, and the special characteristics of asset information. IT should take the lead in APM IT and may benefit by reducing costs and executing projects more effectively.
Executive Overview
ARC’s Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) research spans a variety of con-cepts and models designed to help businesses examine and improve management of valuable company resources, including not only physical assets, but also the related people and information assets. Each business must determine the priority of asset management initiatives relative to other business initiatives and activities. This can range from incremental enhancements to existing maintenance programs to developing a comprehensive enterprise-wide ALM pro-gram.
As shown in the figures on page 2, ARC cate-gorizes ALM activities into three areas: project performance management (PPM), asset per-formance management (APM), and asset & project portfolio management. Clearly, all are related, but represent differ-ent sets of business processes with differdiffer-ent participants. All ALM areas require supporting IT capabilities, but strategies in each area may be slightly different. Each must address the applications used by domain practitioners and support for the specific information they create and con-sume.
This paper focuses on APM where the primary participants are operations, maintenance, and some business functions. IT Applications for APM focus on operating and maintaining complex facilities. Associated information management requirements range from simple document and records man-agement, to comprehensive collaborative environments with automated information management processes and formal quality programs.
While most other ARC documents about APM address topics from the perspective of APM practitioners, this document is intended to introduce IT professionals to APM and establish an understanding of the vital role that IT must play in APM initiatives. One of these roles is to develop and man-age an APM IT strategy, including basic technology capabilities, off-the-shelf asset related products, and possibly internally developed cross-functional workflows, environments, and integrations.
For the most part, APM IT needs are similar to and should be aligned with other domains. But APM IT must also address some unique requirements, particularly requirements for asset information management (AIM). All should be articulated in a formal APM IT vision, possibly using reference architectures and a road map that can be used across multiple IT projects.
Asset Performance Management - An IT
Perspective
All businesses have some form of assets and it is vital that executives con-sciously decide how those assets should be managed. This decision process starts by deciding what constitutes business assets and examining how they relate to business success, including consideration of risk. The process should result in assignment of specific asset-related responsibilities within the business, possibly identifying a single executive to manage all asset-related initiatives.
ARC’s Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) concepts provide a com-prehensive view of assets that can help businesses develop their asset management strategy. The following is a very brief overview of ALM to provide context for APM and APM IT. Numerous other ARC strate-gy reports provide additional information on ALM and APM.
ALM Takes a Broad Perspective of Assets
ARC’s ALM models take a broad perspective on assets, including not only physical assets, but also the people and information associated with those assets. This perspective encourages broader thinking and enables im-provements and optimization at a level well beyond individual pieces of equipment. Traditionally, businesses have not started with this perspec-tive, and many still take a more narrow view. However, it is necessary to include people and information improvements to reach higher-level asset performance objectives.
ALM does not include all information and people. Other IT and HR pro-grams address these broader management needs. In fact, these propro-grams and their resulting systems may be leveraged in an ALM program.
ALM Encourages Thinking about All
Aspects of Asset Performance
ALM Categorizes Activities into Three Major Areas
As shown in the figures on the page 2, ARC categorizes ALM activities into three major business areas: PPM, APM, and asset & project portfolio man-agement. All are related because they are concerned with assets, but each area represents substantially different business processes, different primary participants, and different information sets.
ALM processes are complex and IT support for efficient and effective workflows is fundamental to good performance in every ALM area. As one might expect, some of the more persistent ALM challenges are associated with overlaps in PPM, APM, and portfolio management. This includes overlaps in responsibilities, cross-functional processes, shared information, and information transfers between areas. Consequently, this guarantees the IT organization a role in every ALM activity. When businesses do not have an enterprise-wide ALM program, the IT organization is in a unique posi-tion to identify opportunities for improvement across all the ALM areas, as well as across business units, projects, etc.
Information Management Is Particularly Critical for ALM
Every ALM area leverages IT extensively in the form of domain-specific business applications. While practitioners appreciate the value of these so-lutions, they often ignore overall management of information across applications, domain stakeholders, and ALM areas. This often represents some of the most significant ALM challenges and opportunities for im-provement. This is captured in ARC’s models as the need for comprehensive information management strategies within each ALM area, which we call project information management (PIM), asset information management (AIM) and asset & portfolio information management. We’ve also identified a strategy for managing information exchange and sharing between areas, which we call asset lifecycle information management (ALIM).
ALM information management strategies are extremely broad in scope, in-cluding information in many different forms (hard copy, electronic), handover guides to manage contractual issues, etc. The IT organization needs to support and be involved in developing these strategies, but man-agement is generally delegated to domain manman-agement.
IT for APM – The Focus of This Report
This paper is about IT support for all of the processes, workflows and other activities associated with APM, including AIM. We refer to this as APM IT and view it as a specific application area for the IT organization, compara-ble to programs like manufacturing IT, PLM, etc. which address specific issues related to a specific business area.
The primary participants in APM are people in operations, maintenance, and other business functions required to use and care for capital assets ef-fectively. As explained above, the IT organization plays a supporting role for the rest of the APM organization as a provider of enabling technologies for their workflows. In some cases, IT may also play a direct role in some AIM-related activities.
ARC’s model for APM distinguishes between the business processes in-volved in physical asset management (APM processes) and those focused on asset information management (AIM processes). APM processes are what the asset practitioners (maintenance, operators, etc) do to manage the assets. AIM processes are the things the organization does to manage its asset information. The table below indicates some AIM processes where IT may play a direct role. Generally, this will still be in close collaboration with information owners, which may be asset practitioners and others.
AIM Is a Key Issue for Every APM IT Strategy
The intent for AIM is to help optimize asset performance during the opera-tion phase of an asset’s lifecycle. However, the IT organizaopera-tion’s involvement in AIM has to begin with the planning of new assets to enable information to be acquired and processed in a manner that will support effective operations.
Project operations create considerable asset information, much of which has to be loaded into the IT systems that support operations, maintenance, and on-going business activities. This loading process usually involves much effort because of the volume of information, and because of unique information transformations, difficult quality issues, the need for multiple perspec-tives, and others.
A multitude of diverse information is created when designing, building, and commission-ing facilities. While some is directly useful for operations and maintenance, other infor-mation has to be transformed into different forms to meet APM needs. Much additional information must be created, such as spare parts lists and maintenance procedures, for an effective and efficient facility. All this information must then be struc-tured for easy access and maintenance.
Other, more dynamic asset information is created during operations and maintenance activities and used by different stakeholders to manage per-formance. For example, this could include asset performance data, asset condition information, inspection data, work orders, parts inventories, and others. This must be planned for in the AIM strategy and monitored on an ongoing basis for quality.
Identify APM Activities in Your Business
ARC’s ALM models define asset management as an enterprise-wide activi-ty with visibiliactivi-ty to asset-related information at all levels of an organization. Of course, not all businesses view asset management this way, and many have no visible enterprise-wide ALM program. This is to be expected be-cause business priorities and related asset management needs vary
Asset (Object)
Attribute Value Note ID P-300-27
Type CPump
DFlow 200 CFM
PR-MAX 3.5
Material Ni-222 Internal
P-300-27 D-300-2003 “Documents” Manuals Operating Procedures Maintenance Procedures … Formal Structures “Drawings” P&ID Installation Electrical Piping … Virtual Views “Data” Instrument Lists Equipment lists Bill of Materials Assemblies Sub-Assemblies Standards Performance History … Virtual Models Meta Data P-300-27 Asset (Object)
AttributeValueNote ID P-300-27 Type CPump DFlow 200 CFM PR-MAX3.5 MaterialNi-222Internal
AIM Has to Support Diverse, Complex Information about Assets
considerably. Perspectives also vary by vertical industry. For example, most process industries have a strong asset management focus with mature asset management processes. At the same time, many discrete manufactur-ing industries restrict the maintenance perspective to the physical assets. Even when businesses have no enterprise-wide or clearly defined ALM program, the IT organization should be vigilant about recognizing the need for APM IT and AIM strategies. In these situations, IT should assume the role of “coordinator,” looking for related programs and project require-ments, providing consistent solutions, and including information sharing. When there is no identifiable, central management for asset-focused pro-grams, it may be a challenge for IT to recognize APM-related projects and support requests. The table below lists several programs that a business should consider as APM activities. Business may have one or more of these (and other) programs, although different names may be used.
Activity Simplified Description Enterprise Asset
Management (EAM) A broad view at maintenance and many of the other activities in this list. Also a solution category Reliability-Centered
Maintenance (RCM) Processes, initiatives and solutions focused on asset reliability Preventive Maintenance
(PM)
Common maintenance program aimed at avoiding expensive and disruptive failures
Condition-Based
Monitoring Measurements and analysis of asset conditions for early failure detection and prediction Maintenance Planning &
Scheduling
Optimizing the use of maintenance staff with minimal disruption to operations
Service Parts Manage-ment
Efforts to minimize repair time and have material on-hand for PM while managing parts inventory cost Service Management Managing external services related to assets Work order Management Scheduling requests for asset related work and
monitoring performance
Return on Assets (ROA) Program aimed at getting optimizing asset investments
OEE Measurement and analysis of overall asset effectiveness
Operations planning and
scheduling Driven by product requirements, but requires high quality asset information Typical Asset-Related Activities
Given the IT organization’s additional responsibilities when it comes to AIM, it is also important to be aware of related ALM activities that may rely upon well-managed asset information. For example:
• Projects require asset information for existing facilities when they are being modified or when new facilities may use similar equipment • Portfolio management requires asset information to evaluate the
viabili-ty of continuing current operations and evaluating requests for modifications
• Corporate programs for sustainability, energy management, etc. will often need asset information to drive higher level metrics
Role of IT in APM
In general, asset management practitioners (as opposed to IT) own the APM processes and information. As such, they are responsible for seeing that the necessary processes and information are identified, developed, and maintained. However, the IT organization is responsible for delivering and maintaining APM solutions to leverage these capabilities, including imple-menting asset practitioner work environments, applications, workflows, business processes, and all associated underlying technologies.
None of the operations and maintenance programs described in the pre-vious section constitutes a comprehensive APM program, but all fall under the general category of APM. Typically, an IT organization cannot create an APM program where there is none. This requires initiative by the asset practitioners with appropriate IT execution support.
However, an IT organization can take the initiative to create a comprehen-sive APM IT program, especially when the IT organization is centralized. For example, IT organizations typically see all information management projects, and can at least establish a practice of determining whether pro-posed projects should be placed within an APM IT strategy based on the specific information, processes, people, applications, project objectives, and others.
Even if the IT organization is distributed in some way - possibly between business units - IT can at least create collaborative arrangements to study
possibilities for re-use across projects, develop enabling components, conso-lidate APM solutions, avoid duplicate efforts, and pursue other such opportunities.
With primary responsibility for solutions, the IT organization should de-velop a formal APM IT vision and strategy. This vision should align with the business’ needs and perspective on APM. Vision might be captured in reference architectures that define technical components and a roadmap that establishes timing for working toward the vision. Together, these pro-vide guidance for APM projects.
Develop an APM IT Organization
In general, APM is a cross-functional activity and every business has pre-ferred ways to address activities that must involve diverse stakeholder roles. APM IT may be addressed with a collaborative council, as a set of
cross-functional teams, or as a center of excellence within the IT organization with support from other organizations. As indicated in the figure, many roles and organizations may be involved. APM practitioners provide the require-ments for APM IT and the IT organization implements those require-ments. Many requirements come in the form of independent project requests. APM IT then requires IT people to coor-dinate multiple project requirements and implementations.
However, not all IT work can be done within the scope and timing of projects. Consequently, a permanent APM IT council or cross-functional team is needed to attempt to develop general APM IT requirements that may drive long-term IT strategy for supporting APM. For example, general APM IT requirements can be derived from past projects, existing imple-mentations, anticipated needs, industry peers and other external information sources, and possibly the APM vision.
ROA
Service Providers Operations &
Maintenance
Managers Maintenance Operators &
Technicians Corporate & Operations IT MRO Purchasing Equipment & Systems Suppliers Project Management MRO Material
Suppliers PerformanceAIM
Maintain Performance Operate
Performance
The APM IT Team Consists of ALM Practitioner, IT Architects, and IT Support for AIM
Align APM IT with Your Business
Priorities
We advise any new APM IT team to start by examining the business situa-tion and how that might influence investments in APM and AIM initiatives. This examination might result in an APM vision that can serve as require-ments for developing a more technical APM IT vision.
Asset Management Needs and Strategies Are Driven by Business Situation
The table above, a form of maturity model, may be useful in assessing a business’ asset management situation and needs. As indicated at the bot-tom of the table, some businesses get along with minimal asset management programs, and others need more mature enterprise-wide pro-grams (moving up the table) to avoid or mitigate large financial, environmental, safety and other risks.
For example, many businesses simply track assets in their financial systems, depreciating them over time. Of course, they perform routine maintenance on physical assets and repair these when they fail. This may be appropriate in certain industries where there is little opportunity to reduce business risk or improve performance with investment in enterprise-wide asset
man-Situation Business Commitment Action
Optimize Asset Management is part of the way we think about our business
Holistic ALM initiatives Broad view of “assets” Formal ALIM IT Strategy
Preemptive Big asset investments are imminent! Want to get it right
Focus on ALM Formalize cross-functional
needs and processes Formal APM IT Strategy
Enterprise
Asset Reliability and Performance are low Some costs are too high Asset performance focus
Focus on APM Define metrics, identify and
improve related roles, processes and information
Centralize initiatives Collaborative (Multi-Dept)
Maintenance maintenance perspectiveManaging assets from a Varies by business unit
Business Unit driven maintenance initiatives ROI based investments Establish collaboration
Financial Visibility
100% Product driven Assets are depreciated
Assets are repaired
Examine business risk Develop appropriate Asset Lifecycle Vision
New technologies and associated practices are always emerging that can benefit asset management programs and the IT organization is in a position to identify many of those opportunities for consideration.
agement programs. However, some businesses are in this situation simply because the company’s asset management practices stopped evolving for any number of reasons.
Some businesses incur very large incident costs and other penalties when assets fail to perform adequately. Others already know that performance is too low or quality is not manageable. These situations call for a focus on current APM and AIM practices and metrics to provide the information necessary to improve APM processes.
A business may be embarking on a large capacity ex-pansion or major asset renovation program, and perhaps it has not experienced a large asset program for several years and its asset information is still most-ly paper-based. From an APM perspective, this situation calls for operations, maintenance, and engi-neering to get involved in the capacity expansion activities sufficiently to plan a modern APM IT and AIM program, and make sure the necessary APM information is generated in time.
Finally, even mature asset-related programs need to change over time to address new asset management challenges while continually improving performance (reliability, quality, etc.) and reducing cost.
Develop an APM IT Vision and Roadmap
All APM IT programs need some form of documented vision to guide in-vestments and project decisions. This vision should include at least a reference APM IT architecture and technical roadmap to guide implementa-tion of various business–driven projects. In addiimplementa-tion, the vision should drive investments in general IT capabilities that enable lower projects costs, faster project implementations, more re-use, more effective integration, and lower maintenance costs.Develop APM IT Reference Architectures
No single vendor product satisfies all end user APM IT requirements. Con-sequently, several components are required and the selection of these components needs to be managed within an APM IT program. One ap-proach is to standardize APM IT components using reference architectures.
While not a detailed implementation architecture, an APM IT reference ar-chitecture identifies the applications and general technology included in the APM IT scope. The reference architecture below shows many of the gener-al categories of components that make up APM IT solutions, and provides a good starting point for developing your reference architecture.
When developing specific reference architecture, you should identify the categories that will be managed, identify all the components within each category, and add other architectural considerations given. Components should be identified by supplier and model and many businesses will have duplicate suppliers and products in some categories.
APM IT Reference Architecture Establishes a Consistent Context for Many APM Projects
Collaborative platform components are general technologies that are not APM-specific. These technologies are likely to come from suppliers such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, Software AG, and TIBCO.
Some application components are off-the-shelf products designed for APM and other ALM needs. Off-the-shelf application components are likely to include EAM, CMMS, maintenance, reliability, ERP, and many others from a wide variety of suppliers including some that specialize in AIM. The off-the-shelf application components for APM vary considerable in functionali-ty and have considerable overlap. (Note that ARC is developing Solution Guides for APM, including AIM, to help with the selection process).
Other APM applications may be developed internally (or outsourced) using components of the collaborative platform specified for APM IT. These should be managed in the APM IT strategy to avoid duplication and
max-Intelligence & Analytics Environments Information Access Mobile Devices Secure Communication Mobile Backend Applications Domain Application Environments Business Processes Application Information APM Role-Based Environments Workflows Information Access APM Applications Intelligence & Analytics Information
Management Workflow & Integration MDM & Quality Mobility Application Development Deployment Monitoring Management Security Infrastructure Role-Based Environments
Collaborative Technology Platform
imize re-use. Examples of this category of applications are automation of cross-functional business processes, integrations and general information sharing applications, and APM-specific work environments. Many of these applications are coupled with multiple off-the shelf applications and tech-nology components, making maintenance and evolution complex.
Collaborative Platforms Are Not Enough for APM IT, Requiring APM Applications and Platform Extensions
Most businesses have standardized certain architectural items (separate from APM) and these should be included or referenced in your APM IT reference architecture. For example, your architecture team may have se-lected SOA or a service-based integration strategy, and this applies to APM as well.
APM IT reference architectures are lasting documents, intended to be used for several projects, but they also change as product selections and other aspects change. In fact, an APM IT program may have multiple reference architectures, possibly representing short-term strategies as well as long-term vision so that projects can align based on timing.
Develop an APM IT Roadmap
In most cases, the current state of your APM IT is not where you want to be. Cost reductions and improved performance will only come from change.
Technology Trend Collaborative Platforms Role-based User Environments Modern Browser-based User Interfaces Master Data Management Practices Pervasive Intelligence and Analytics SOA-Based Products Function Description Information Management
Independent storage of information to enable filling application gaps. Support both centralized and federated strategies. Parses AIM content in support of asset information structure, asset objects, categories and relationships. Supports change management and versioning.
Information
Loading Supports loading, validating, transforming and categorizing assetinformation from applications and legacy formats.
Standardization Supports industry standards for structuring and exchanging assetinformation. Integration Includes tools for integration to common applications containing assetinformation, with prebuilt integrations for Engineering, Maintenance
and EAM applications.
Information Quality
Supports data quality strategies, including validation and quality checks at critical points in information flows. Aligns with corporate Data Quality and MDM programs.
Information Sharing
Provides common asset information services directly usable by workflow, visualization, analytics and other similar elements. Provides information in common formats.
User Interface Role-based with tools appropriate for AIM players.visualization of AIM content and collaborative workflow. Integrates withIncludes popular enterprise portal frameworks.
Terms and
Concepts Language of AIM should be built into solutions to be effective for AIMplayers: Engineering, Operations, Maintenance, etc.
Collaboration Provides an environment and workflows for collaborations in all ALMdomains. Includes capability to create and exchange packages, markups, comments, as-built, etc.
Projects Includes specific capabilities for associating asset information withengineering projects. For example, includes as-built concepts and handling of multiple concurrent projects.
Workflow Includes AIM specific workflows. Can be configured by AIM players.
For example, project and IT maintenance savings may come from reducing the number of applications, consistent technology deployments, re-use, and others. APM IT programs can communicate and manage this change through a defined roadmap.
An APM IT roadmap may use one reference architecture to represent the current state, another to reflect near-term changes, and another to convey the long-term vision. The APM IT roadmap identifies when various refer-ence architectures apply, which in turn tells project teams what IT capabilities are available and what technologies should be used.
Existing applications must be considered when developing an APM IT vi-sion and planning steps to achieve that vivi-sion because the cost, impact, and timing of changes influence strategy. The APM IT roadmap should specify when existing APM IT applications must be modified, re-implemented, or retired to accommodate changes in reference architecture.
Not all IT work needed to move toward an APM IT vision can be com-pleted under APM project requests. Typically, IT must put in place a new technology foundation using its own capability planning and budgeting processes. These must also be reflected in the roadmap.
Align Technology Trends with APM IT
APM IT strategies and solutions must evolve as the included technologies, off-the-shelf applications, and IT practices evolve, and this should be re-flected in your reference architectures. Collaborative platform components evolve to serve very general IT markets – independent of application do-mains and industries – and APM IT strategies must track their evolution, in alignment with overall corporate IT technology strategies.As with any enterprise applications, off-the-shelf APM application suppli-ers have their own technology strategies and will lag general evolution to some degree, limiting when general technologies can be removed or up-dated.
Many IT trends and emerging practices support evolution of APM pro-grams. The table below lists several you should considered when developing your APM IT roadmap.
Collaborative Environments
AIM is central to APM and extensive information sharing and collaboration across a broad range of stakeholder roles is essential to deliver maximum value. Collaboration technologies have been evolving rapidly outside of business environments, offering ample fuel for innovation for many busi-ness activities. These include technologies ranging from desktop sharing and more effective browser-based user interfaces to diverse social media. Such diversity makes it critical to include well-thought-out plans in your APM IT vision.
Many IT Trends Support Enhanced APM IT Programs
Master Data Management
APM studies point to several issues that can be categorized as data quality issues. Mitigating those issues is very costly and the impact on projects and productivity in general is large. Master Data Management (MDM) has been around for some time but is becoming the umbrella for a very broad range of data quality issues. Consequently, MDM practices and off the-shelf technology solutions are evolving.
Off-the-shelf MDM solutions are being separated into MDM platforms that are domain agnostic, and domain solutions, many of which are being im-plemented over an MDM platform. MDM platforms often include tools
Technology Trend Clarification
Collaborative Platforms Collaborative Tools & Environments Evolution of Technology Platforms. Role-based User
Environments Workflow, Information, Tools, and Security Optimized for Roles
Modern Browser-based User Interfaces
AJAX, RESTful, Silverlight … for higher productivity in a Browser
Master Data Management Practices
Management of shared information Common Practices
Improve information quality
Pervasive Intelligence
and Analytics Embedded in more role-based environments and applications
SOA-Based Solutions Common Technology ApproachMore flexible Mobile Technologies Enabled by developments in wireless communications, mobile devices …
that can be used for data mastering tasks and other activities that improve and maintain information quality.
Master Data Management Processes and Technologies Should Be Considered for APM IT Programs
To our knowledge, no comprehensive off-the-shelf MDM solution for asset information has been developed over an MDM platform. However, when developing your own master data and data quality programs, MDM plat-forms are worth considering.
Perhaps more important, end user MDM principles and practices are also evolving. APM IT strategies should align with existing corporate MDM strategies. A couple of MDM lessons learned are worth noting. First, each business’s definition of what constitutes master data differs somewhat, but in any case, MDM experience shows that not all master data can be aggre-gated into one physical data store. A federated approach is necessary. Second, MDM has shown that each information item must have one data owner and that owner is not likely to be in IT. For example, asset manag-ers, maintenance people, etc. are likely to be information owners and others should not be able to change information directly.
Integration, Services, and SOA
Asset information exists in many, somewhat isolated, locations and an es-sential value to an APM IT strategy is making the necessary information more broadly accessible. This involves integration processes that keep mul-tiple locations synchronized. Similar integration capabilities are required to
Category Cost
Avoidance
Effort Taken to prevent or minimize impact Redundant systems, paper
backups …
Mitigation Reentry of Information,redesign, rework, verifying information …
Delay startups, increased Late projects, late downtime, lost customers Quality Issues Explanation
Outdated and
Wrong Values Information is obsolete or entered incorrectly
Incomplete
Definitions Missing Information Ambiguous Information No units, inconsistent units, unrecognizable abbreviations Inconsistent Formats
File formats, multiple proprietary formats or schemas
Inconsistent Semantics
Same labels different meaning - different labels, same meaning
Different National
Languages English, French, Spanish,Chinese, …, units, dates, …
Redundant Items Same or similar items defined in multiple places MDM Practices and Tools Address Common Quality Issues
The high cost of poor quality asset information has been well
Integration solutions vary from storing information in multiple formats, to transforming information on the fly, to adding special viewing tools to receiver environments. Naturally, it is best to select one integration and transformation strategy and include that in the reference architecture and roadmap.
move information between applications as part of workflows and cross- functional business processes.
Other than the type and diversity of the information itself, integration for APM IT is like integration for any other application domain. Asset
infor-mation typically involves structured inforinfor-mation (such as XML data) but also involves documents, drawings, and other unstructured information. At times, the unstructured information also needs to be transformed for use in various environ-ments and tools. For example, drawings may need to be converted from diverse supplier for-mats to PDF documents.
Business Intelligence and Analytics
It should now come as no surprise that APM is about asset performance and that some form of business intelligence (BI) and analytics are essential elements of all but the most basic APM IT reference architectures and roadmaps. Fortunately, intelligence for business and operations domains has made great strides in recent years. All collaborative platform suppliers offer environments and tools, even though their architectures and target users vary.
Traditional BI and analytics offerings are targeted towards specialists, but recent supplier efforts recognize a broad user spectrum with appropriate changes in product architectures, tools, user interface, work environment support, and others. Some of these offerings are still evolving rapidly, but APM IT strategy developers should include general BI and analytics capa-bilities in their reference architectures and roadmaps to support development of asset-oriented analytic applications, performance indica-tors, dashboards, and other APM IT components. These are where APM and performance management becomes real and results are realized.
Recommendations
A high quality APM IT strategy is essential for driving optimum asset per-formance, with minimum waste, minimum cost and maximum quality. This demands a deliberate APM IT strategy.
• IT managers should take the initiative to create an APM IT strategy, even when there is no visible or comprehensive APM strategy.
• Development of an APM IT strategy must include the asset managers and practitioners. IT managers may need to be the APM IT champion and solicit support in establishing some form of cross-functional team, council, or other organizational structure.
• Many businesses have preferred methods for analyzing and defining vision within business domain. We suggest developing one or more reference architectures that can describe the vision in conjunction with a roadmap for moving from the as-is state to intermediate states and ul-timately to the APM IT vision.
• The APM IT vision must be aligned with corporate standards, adding in asset-specific applications, products, and technologies to form solu-tions that address unique domain requirements.
Analysts: Robert Mick, Sid Snitkin Editor: Paul Miller
Distribution: ALM Clients
Acronym Reference: For a complete list of industry acronyms, refer to our
web page at www.arcweb.com/Research/IndustryTerms/
AIM Asset Information Management ALIM Asset Lifecycle Information
Management
ALM Asset Lifecycle Management APM Asset Performance Management BI Business Intelligence
CMM Collaborative Management Model CMMS Computer Maintenance
Management System
EAM Enterprise Asset Management ERP Enterprise Resource Planning HR Human Resources
IT Information Technology
MDM Master Data Management MRO Maintenance, Repair, and
Operations
OEE Overall Equipment Effectiveness OpX Operational Excellence
PIM Project Information Management PLM Product Lifecycle Management PM Prevention Maintenance PPM Project Performance
Management ROA Return on Assets
SOA Service Oriented Architecture XML Extensible Markup Language
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