What is Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM)?
Asset Lifecycle Management is the process of continuously increasing asset profitability. An effective ALM strategy optimizes performance across each stage of the asset lifecycle to reduce maintenance costs, extend asset lifespans, and increase reliability.
By adopting a lifecycle approach to optimizing asset performance, ALM can improve profitability for even the most diverse asset ecosystems, including complex capital projects.
Asset Lifecycle Management is critical for capital project success. Without the deep asset visibility accompanying a successful ALM framework, effectively managing assets amongst a dense network of people and business operations is a logistical nightmare. With Asset Lifecycle Management in place, the excess noise clouding asset visibility is filtered out, allowing the factors impacting project scopes and timelines to be readily optimized.
Why is Asset Lifecycle Management Important?
Asset Lifecycle Management is important because it ensure all assets perform at peak efficiency and reduced costs. When optimized, assets are less likely to break down and have a longer service life. When these operational advantages are shared across all assets in a project network, the number of factors negatively impacting the bottom line are significantly reduced, and as a result, profit margins rise.
Asset Lifecycle Management also alleviates the following common frustrations limiting capital project success:
1. Poor visibility
In complex capital projects, stakeholders usually feel disconnected from teams, data, and workflows. This disconnect disrupts even the most simplistic collaboration across the value chain. Without the visibility necessary for inter-team collaboration, stakeholders don't know if a project will meet its deadline or if it's on budget.
2. Poor productivity
Productive workflows are paramount to the success of a capital project. One of the primary inhibitors of productivity is limited digitization across project processes. Without a digitization strategy, time is wasted on manual tasks that could be automated at scale. In the fast-paced world of capital project management, time can quickly become your enemy - the greater its wastage, the larger the negative impact on the bottom line.
3. Maintaining a competitive advantage
Capital project opportunities are often lost to overseas businesses. The reason for this unfortunate exodus is that overseas firms tend to be more open to digital transformation. When every facet of a business is influenced by digital transformation, operation sophistication increases, and bottom-line demands decrease. Any investment injected into such a profitable arrangement is multiplied at the other end, and a partnership opportunity predicated on such a scheme is very difficult to deny.
The poor competitiveness resulting from suppressed digitization is further augmented by poor productivity and visibility. Timely project delivery, the primary attribute of a highly-competitive business, is very difficult to maintain with a myopic outlook and sluggish, unproductive processes.
A framework for effective Asset Lifecycle Management
An effective Asset Lifecycle Management strategy aims to increase performance visibility and production quality across the entire project asset ecosystem. An increased competitive advantage will naturally follow the successful attainment of these two objectives.
The following three-pillar Asset Lifecycle Management framework addresses the primary components influencing the success of complex capital project management.
1. Embrace digital transformation
Digital transformation connects people, processes, and projects across the entire lifecycle of all capital project assets. This effort is the foundation of Asset Lifecycle Management because it bridges the gap between stakeholders and the various factors impacting operational asset efficiency. The greater the possibility for strategic input, the greater the potential for increased asset efficiency and capital project success.
Learn how HxGN SDx can digitally transform your asset lifecycle.
2. Continuously optimize
End-to-end digital transformation will allow decision-makers to track the performance of all processes influencing asset efficiency. This deep level of visibility will uncover additional optimization opportunities as projects evolve. Rapid process optimization equips a business to scale its operations in line with growing capital project requirements, giving it a real competitive edge.
Learn how HxGN SDx InsightView makes monitoring and tracking asset efficiency easier.
3. Reduce operational risk
Digital transformation expands the attack surface, giving cyberattacks more potential entry options to target - a phenomenon that's characteristic of all digital transformation efforts. With the right cybersecurity solution, it's possible to digitize and scale project operations without worrying about accompanying security vulnerabilities.
Learn how PAS Cyber Integrity can help you scale your operations safely.
Final Thoughts
Digital transformation sets the foundation for addressing all of the common challenges of Asset Lifecycle Management. Digitizing operational processes increases the visibility and efficiency of all capital project assets while equipping stakeholders with the analytics they need to cultivate competitive advantages faster.
Hexagon is the only solution provider that understands the specific challenges different stakeholders face throughout the asset life cycle. Contact us to address how you can increase efficiency at every phase of your value chain.