Enterprise asset management (EAM) involves the management of the maintenance of physical assets of an organization throughout each asset’s lifecycle. EAM is used to plan, optimize, execute, and track the needed maintenance activities with the associated priorities, skills, materials, tools, and information. This covers the design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and decommissioning or replacement of plant, equipment and facilities.
A 2017 Aberdeen Group report indicates that, in the manufacturing industry alone, more than $50 billion is lost annually due to unplanned downtime. Many companies continue to struggle to benchmark maintenance performance and implement effective maintenance programs that drive measurable improvement. Effective maintenance programs reduce downtime, extend equipment life and minimize repair time when equipment outages do occur.
The same Aberdeen Group report concludes that best-in-class manufacturers (identified from the top 20 percent performance scores) have 90 percent overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and an 11 percent maintenance cost reduction year over year, which gives companies a maintenance performance target. How do companies achieve success?
Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a software package that maintains a computer database of information about an organization’s maintenance operations.[2] This information is intended to help maintenance workers do their jobs more effectively (for example, determining which machines require maintenance and which storerooms contain the spare parts they need) and to help management make informed decisions (for example, calculating the cost of machine breakdown repair versus preventive maintenance for each machine, possibly leading to better allocation of resources).
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For many, owning a business is a part of the American Dream and a path to personal wealth. If you’re a mechanic or working on becoming a mechanic, reaching that dream might start with the idea of opening your own auto repair shop. You can set the hours, work with customers on pricing, specialize on interesting vehicles, and take control over the future of your career. When you work on the shop floor without ownership, your earnings top out at your salary or hourly wage. When you own the shop, the only limit on profits is the capacity of the garage. Before you start looking for money to get your garage doors up, planning is critical.
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