The Strategy is the Asset

Joe Nichols

An effective asset strategy is crucial for organizations seeking to maximize the reliability and performance of their critical equipment and infrastructure. The gold standard for asset strategy development is Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), which focuses on removing unnecessary maintenance work while protecting safety and operational reliability.

As Nowlan and Heap state, "The objective of such programs is to realize the inherent reliability capabilities of the equipment for which they are designed, and to do so at minimum cost."¹ The resulting maintenance program should include only the essential tasks required to maintain safe and reliable operations.

Asset strategies come in various forms, from the scheduled maintenance outlined in a product's owner's manual to the more complex programs developed for industrial assets. The owner's manual of your new car, for example, informs you about the schedule for maintenance and service. This is a protection that mitigates risk for the owner and the OEM, particularly during the warranty period.

The same can be said of asset strategies for an industrial setting. In this more complex context, the importance of asset strategies cannot be overlooked. Here, the consequences of failure, and the benefits of business outcomes, can have much higher stakes. The asset strategy, therefore, has potential or actual value to an organization - which is the very definition of an asset.

For some organizations, a formal study, using methods such as RCM, may be out of reach due to resource constraints. In these cases, a "reduced order model" or simplified approach can still yield significant benefits in terms of optimizing asset reliability and performance.

However, implementing an asset strategy is not without its challenges. Aligning all stakeholders on the combined plan, ensuring a common understanding of the strategy's rationale and quantifying the strategy's effectiveness can all be difficult. Additionally, organizations may need to adopt a "minimally viable" strategy initially, with the ability to activate more comprehensive actions over time as constraints are addressed.

Asset Strategies Have a Lifecycle

Fortunately, innovation and technology has removed a lot of complexity and burden from the asset strategy life cycle, from how it is initially developed, to how it is operationalized. Consider the recursive continuous process illustrated below.

Develop – Strategies can originate from many processes within an organization such as RCM, OEM recommendations, HAZOP studies or recommendations that have come after a bad incident.

Execute – Recommended mitigations and activities are then implemented and executed in a variety of siloed and departmental solutions, such as enterprise asset management (EAM), operator rounds and condition monitoring.

Evaluate – As asset management activities are performed, valuable information is generated which can be analyzed to help understand an asset's cost profile, its current condition, mechanical reliability and potential failure risk to the business.

Optimize – Insights generated from the ongoing evaluation of the asset strategy are leveraged to immediately address failure threats, as well as to ensure that maintenance and monitoring activities are optimized for cost and risk.

Asset Strategies Deliver Value When Operationalized

While simple in design, the asset strategy lifecycle can be very difficult to manage within industrial organizations. Implemented correctly, the process will span multiple business functions, many asset and operations stakeholders and a myriad of technologies and solutions. However, overcoming these challenges can generate significant benefits and offer continuous improvement and optimization.

Let’s look at a simple example for a centrifugal pump to illustrate. In this example, an organization has utilized a variety of techniques - RCM, HAZOP and historical data analysis - to establish a risk optimized asset strategy:

1. Monthly preventative maintenance activity to lubricate the bearings
2. Daily operator check to ensure no leakage from the seal
3. Real-time monitoring of speed and flow to detect a dead-head condition

In this overly simplified strategy example, we will need to engage at least two different organizations (maintenance and operations) and three different technologies (EAM, operator rounds and process monitoring). Implementing and monitoring strategies across these business functions and systems is one of the biggest challenges to ensuring strategies are continuously optimized and driving value to the business.

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However, overcoming these challenges can generate significant benefits and offer continuous improvement and optimization. Let’s expand this example to show how a fully operationalized asset strategy can expand the benefits from the initial definition as it is executed, evaluated and optimized.

1. The execution of the daily operator check identified a loose safeguard which automatically triggered a work order to address and mitigate safety risks identified in the HAZOP.
2. Monitoring of the pump’s operating conditions identified a low flow, high speed (dead-head) situation which automatically triggered a work order to inspect and clean the strainer, avoiding possible damage to the pump and production downtime.
3. Stakeholder collaboration around the dead-head event identified the opportunity to replace the time-based strainer cleaning with a condition-based activity. By using existing operational monitoring, strainer cleaning can now be done less frequently, reducing cost and number of maintenance interventions.

This is how an operationalized asset strategy can continuously drive direct impacts to risk, cost and performance on a single asset. Imagine the potential value creation if you can take this approach with all centrifugal pumps or all assets? With HxGN APM, you can. HxGN APM is purpose built to operationalize asset strategies with an intuitive and effective process.

HxGN APM Designed for Information Management

As reported by Verdantix in their 2024 APM Green Quadrant report, information management is part of what makes HxGN APM stand out as an industry leader.

Having the ability to gather these inputs into an asset strategy and operationalize it is one of the differentiators that sets HxGN APM apart from others in the market. It transforms a static document or data object reviewed every five years into a dynamic, continuous improvement capability.

At its core, information management in HxGN APM is about leveraging existing data - such as operating conditions and work histories - to generate valuable insights about the assets most likely to fail, current conditions and emerging failure risks. HxGN APM excels in this area by not only making predictions, but also seamlessly integrating them into asset strategies.

By excelling in information management, HxGN APM significantly improves the quality of decisions and the confidence with which they are made. This enables organizations to continuously build upon their collective understanding of asset care, maintenance and performance.

In an era where data is abundant, but insights are precious, HxGN APM stands out as a powerful tool for turning information into action. By providing top-tier capabilities in both information management and failure prediction, it empowers organizations to optimize their asset performance, reduce downtime and actively manage risk. To learn more about HxGN APM, read our latest brochure here.