Skip to content
Conscious Asset
  • Consulting
    • Asset Performance Management
    • Maintenance Management
      • Maturity Assessment
      • Business Case Estimator
      • Maintenance Coaching
    • MRO Spares
      • MRO Spares White Papers
      • Supply Chain and Inventory Analysis Case Study
        • Remote Supply Chain Analysis
    • Reliability Management
      • Business Case Estimator
      • Reliability Maturity Assessment
      • Reliability Centered Maintenance – Re-Engineered RCM-R
      • Root Cause Failure Analysis
      • Reliability Analysis
        • Reliability Data Analysis Case Studies
          • Work Order Analysis – feedback meeting example
      • Pipeline and Gas Reliability
    • Special Services
      • Expert Witness
      • Finance your project
      • Staffing
    • Technology Support
  • Learning
    • Catalog
    • My account
    • Registration
  • Events
  • Information
    • Blog
      • UPTIME
      • Reliability
      • Asset Management
      • Change Management
      • Planning and Scheduling
      • Risk Management
      • Technology
      • Consulting
      • MRO
    • Books
    • Case Studies
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Partners and Affiliations
    • Clients
    • Careers – Consulting, Training, Sales
  • Contact
Conscious Asset Blog Asset Management

Myth Busting 1: Maintenance is Asset Management

  • 2018-02-152020-06-20

This is the first in a long series of blogs about common myths I have encountered and continue to encounter in my work with various customers. None of these “myths” are universal either – some people believe them, others are not sure, others do not. Which are you?

Maintenance is NOT asset management (AM). The myth (or perhaps misperception) arises because of a few factors:

  • When AM began to appear (2004 in the UK) those who were closest to it came from the maintenance discipline. We (and I include myself among this group outside the UK) clearly saw the benefits in what good AM practices could do for us.
  • The computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) world, began to use the term Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) to describe their systems. They are a competitive lot and marketing image is important. EAM simply has more snob-appeal than CMMS, even if the software’s functionality didn’t change (much), its name could change easily.
  • In the public sector, the term AM started to be used to describe their already established processes of capital financial forecasting for future capital works (which are usually contracted out). Those forecasting processes have been evolving and refined and in some cases includes operating funding as well. AM is truly a financial function in that sector, but because they fund physical infrastructure, their relation to the realm of the physical implies a link (that may not always really exist) to the asset maintenance function that they typically manage themselves.
  • In the financial sector the term has no relation to the life cycle of physical assets; there it refers to financial assets which may be tangible or intangible. As the use of the term grew in the physical world (us), the need to distinguish from the financial world (them), grew and even those of us who focus only on maintenance, joined into the discussion.

AM (as we use it here) refers to the actions needed to derive value from our physical assets while balancing costs, risks and opportunities. It includes tangible (physical) assets and intangible, which I prefer to limit to the information assets (manuals, drawings, schematics, diagrams, etc.) related to and reflecting the physical assets we manage. Since those assets have a definable “life cycle”, the derivation of value implies that all decisions and actions taken at all stages in that life cycle can potentially contribute to or detract from that value we derive. Hence, AM is concerned with an asset’s complete life cycle from concept to disposal, replacement or remediation (if needed).

That life cycle includes a variety of activities that are usually quite specialized and managed by different groups of people. Marketing forecasts a need (demand forecasting). Engineering proposes a way to meet that need (conceptual design). Various groups get involved in deciding on the optimum course of action (feasibility studies, selection of an option, getting permissions, acquisition of land, etc.). Engineering (either in-house or contracted) designs the asset through various design stages moving from concept to detail to construction. Overlapping that process is construction and acquisition. When ready, the new asset is commissioned and put into operation. Throughout its operational life, the asset is maintained (maintenance and operational departments), modified (engineering and process engineering), repaired (maintenance again), replaced (maintenance if due to failure). At some point (usually long into the future) maintenance frequency increases as the asset degrades and it becomes uneconomical to sustain, so the cycle repeats. The old asset is decommissioned, disposed of, land cleared and restored to a state acceptable to society at that point in the future.

Maintenance is but one function within that entire life cycle. Engineering is also but one function involved. Operations, finance and human resources (who makes sure it can be maintained and operated) are also players. Each of these is historically located in a different department in our companies which tend to be structured much like military units, each group doing its job independent of the others, but supposedly in mutual support of each other.

If we all worked together well and actually did consider each group’s needs and maintained a singular focus, then AM as a discipline probably would not have been needed. But we don’t.

AM is all about tying all that together into a single functional purpose – to deliver value. Asset Maintenance, helps, but it’s only a piece of the big picture.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
SaaS for Predictive Maintenance in the Cloud
Myth Busting 2: We can do it ourselves

Newsletter Sign-Up

reCAPTCHA demo: Simple page

Experienced Insight, Training and Consulting You Can Trust

Let's Talk

Site Map

  • Consulting
    • Asset Performance Management
    • Maintenance Management
      • Maturity Assessment
      • Business Case Estimator
      • Maintenance Coaching
    • MRO Spares
      • MRO Spares White Papers
      • Supply Chain and Inventory Analysis Case Study
        • Remote Supply Chain Analysis
    • Reliability Management
      • Business Case Estimator
      • Reliability Maturity Assessment
      • Reliability Centered Maintenance – Re-Engineered RCM-R
      • Root Cause Failure Analysis
      • Reliability Analysis
        • Reliability Data Analysis Case Studies
          • Work Order Analysis – feedback meeting example
      • Pipeline and Gas Reliability
    • Special Services
      • Expert Witness
      • Finance your project
      • Staffing
    • Technology Support
  • Learning
    • Catalog
    • My account
    • Registration
  • Events
  • Information
    • Blog
      • UPTIME
      • Reliability
      • Asset Management
      • Change Management
      • Planning and Scheduling
      • Risk Management
      • Technology
      • Consulting
      • MRO
    • Books
    • Case Studies
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Partners and Affiliations
    • Clients
    • Careers – Consulting, Training, Sales
  • Contact

Recent Blog Posts

  • The benefits of proactive maintenance
  • Are you informed, or data distracted? You need AIM
  • Proactive maintenance is more Covid, how “covid” is yours?
  • Pay $3k to keep out of trouble, or more to get out of jail
  • How to keep the boss out of jail
  • Interview with MRO Magazine – part 2
  • Business Case Estimator Insights
  • What I’m learning about Online Training

Follow us on Twitter

Tweets by @ConsciousAsset

Contact Us

  • Email
    info@consciousasset.com
  • Phone
    +1-705-408-0255
  • Address
    92 Caplan Avenue, Suite 624
    Barrie, ON L4N 9J2

USA Office

  • Email
    info@consciousasset.com
  • Phone
    +1-509-838-2548
  • Address
    400 S. Jefferson, Suite 301
    Spokane, WA 99204
Copyright 2020 | Conscious Asset
Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress
  • Consulting
  • Learning
  • Events
  • Information
  • About Us
  • Contact

Login

Forgot Password?

Create a new account

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

    No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.