74. Enhancing Operations and Maintenance with an EAM System

Enhancing Operations and Maintenance with an EAM System Enterprise asset management (EAM) involves a combination of software, systems, and services that are used to maintain and control operational assets and equipment. The aim is to optimize the quality and utilization of assets throughout their lifecycle, increase uptime, and reduce costs. EAM involves work management; asset maintenance; planning and scheduling; supply chain management; and environmental, health, and safety initiatives. “Maximo is an enterprise asset management system. It’s a tool, if you will, a software tool, that’s used to manage and maintain expensive assets, primarily, and power has been a big part of the Maximo portfolio for as long as I can remember,” Steve Richmond, CEO of Projetech, a Maximo-as-a-Service provider, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “It’s good for managing equipment and the people that work on it. So, if you’re tracking labor or certifications, compliance issues, all that detail-oriented data collection, it’s a perfect repository for it.” EAM is often associated with a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), but it’s different. While a CMMS can be one aspect of EAM, it focuses on centralizing information to facilitate and automate maintenance management processes. EAM, on the other hand, provides an approach for managing the entire asset lifecycle, supporting asset performance from acquisition to disposal. “Maximo-as-a-Service is essentially what it says,” Richmond said. Unlike 30 years ago, when a company would have had to buy a CMMS or EAM software product, and then purchase and install servers, operating systems, databases, and all the related technology that goes along with owning and operating a system, today, providers such as Projetech offer a “no-hassle, login, and simply use-the-product concept,” he explained. While the solution has long been used at conventional power plants, such as coal, nuclear, and gas-fired facilities, Richmond said it is also suitable for wind and solar farms. “It’s been the largest growth area of my business for over five years now. We are a perfect fit for renewables,” he said. The reason is that many solar and wind farms are located in remote areas. “The ability to look at your entire farm, or many farms in the aggregate, and make decisions about what’s the best way to schedule and plan your maintenance, makes this remote connectivity a perfect fit for them,” Richmond explained. “And the ability to be able to connect anywhere, again, from the cab of a pickup truck to a phone on top of a tower—everybody’s connected and they all have the same information available to them at any time.”