Optimizing Your Mission-Critical Resources with Asset Investment Planning

June 7, 2024

Anna Morris

No matter the industry, capital-intensive organizations rely on their assets to get the job done. So, it’s of utmost importance to ensure those assets not only remain functional, but also safe and efficient. Whether you’re in the airline industry ensuring the safety of countless aircraft within your fleet or you’re in the oil industry tracking and maintaining a multitude of mission-critical components within a refining plant, you need a plan to ensure your investments are optimized. This is why capital-intensive organizations and companies that contract for them are maturing and digitalizing their asset management and planning processes to keep their resources running smoothly.

There are three types of asset management and planning methods:

APM and EAM systems aim to improve the reliability and availability of assets on a daily or weekly basis. While this shorter-term planning is needed, an AIP solution works to inform long-term, financial decision-making regarding the maintenance and/or replacement of assets.

How Does AIP Work?

An AIP solution leverages data from both APM and EAM systems to predict the current and future performance of assets based over a certain period of time. With this data, AIP allows business leaders to plan five, ten, or even twenty years down the line to ensure their organization remains equipped with the appropriate tools and funding. This allows organizations to meet their level of service (LOS) goals and adhere to compliance requirements regarding maintenance like State of Good Repair.

There are two approaches organizations can take when operating within their AIP process. The first is the Asset-Centric approach. This approach is APM driven, and its function is to replace or refurbish assets as they reach certain points in their asset lifecycle while allowing them to meet needed levels of service. The second approach is the Project-Centric approach. This approach relies on project-oriented decision making to replace or create networks/systems rather than individual assets. These two approaches work in tandem to consider all affected assets within an organization and harmonize their existence within the greater project portfolio.

The Three Pillars of AIP

An effective asset investment plan is based on three focus areas: asset condition, asset criticality, and level of service required. Let’s explore the importance of each pillar below.

Asset Condition
AIP consistently considers how an asset is holding up and calculates how much life the asset has left or when it will need maintenance/repairs. Based on these calculations, an AIP solution will schedule periodic inspections and maintenance at optimal intervention points.

Asset Criticality
With AIP, project leaders can score assets based on how vital they are to achieving business objectives. This scoring method allows organizations to weigh the importance of their assets based on the impact an asset’s failure would have on business operations.

Level of Service Required
Finally, an AIP system considers the goals a business has in light of its SLAs and crafts a plan to realize these goals by best-utilizing company assets. As the organization follows this plan, an AIP system will measure performance based on previously set key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure alignment between asset investments and policies, strategies, and objectives. The AIP system will recommend one of three options: do nothing, refurbish or replace.

The Benefits of AIP Software

It’s no surprise that Asset investment planning (AIP) software is gaining popularity within capital-intensive industries. When the three pillars discussed above are addressed and an asset investment plan is formed, organizations glean the following benefits:

Enhanced Visibility
Organizations avoid spending spikes by minimizing unforeseen asset needs.

Optimized Asset Investments
Users weigh different scenarios based on what-if analyses and pick the scenario most likely to play out, ensuring resources are maximized due to perfectly timed asset maintenance and replacement.

Greater Flexibility
Businesses can quickly pivot resources when business objectives change.

Improved Predictability
Organizations can predict the current and future performance of their asset base over a predefined horizon.

AIP, EAM, & APM Under One Roof

Because AIP leverages data from both EAM and APM systems, it’s important that your EAM and APM systems work seamlessly with your AIP solution and vice versa. Without this cross-functionality, project managers will be forced into the time-consuming task of replicating asset data across multiple platforms.

To combat this, a continuous loop of asset performance data should feed directly into the project portfolio. Project leaders are turning to enterprise project performance (EPP) to achieve this level of data autonomy. EPP is a mode of operation that combines project management, project controls and portfolio management into one platform. An effective EPP solution will also feature AIP capabilities that allow organizations to engage in scenario planning. Scenario planning enables them to analyze different combinations of portfolio composition to identify the optimal investment path. Once a scenario is selected based on the data brought forward through the AIP process, the approved options become projects to be managed within your EPP solution, ensuring a seamless asset lifecycle journey.

Hexagon’s Smart Digital Reality™ for Industrial Facilities works to meet this need by consolidating the functions of EAM, APM, and AIP into a seamless platform where data can thrive. Armed with a cross-functional solution, your organization will implement project plans that will take all parts of the project lifecycle into account, which will include the health of your mission-critical assets.