Enterprise Asset Management: The Heartbeat of Municipal Modernization

Co-writer: Denzil Solomon, Vice President, Emerging Technologies

Cities are looking to the future with the implementation of cutting-edge assets such as:

• IoT devices to monitor asset health and enable predictive maintenance;
• Machine learning and AI to streamline and automate processes;
• Augmented reality and mobile devices to speed up service calls.

Although heading in the right direction, one major inefficiency is the dependence on legacy asset management solutions that have worked well in the past but are now holding municipalities back from real progress. What’s required is a modernized method of tracking and managing any future assets, as well as the assets being used today. For that reason, asset management is imperative to municipalities that are looking to modernize and improve efficiency.

Computer graphics — Enterprise Asset Management: The Heartbeat of Municipal Modernization

Challenges to Modernization

Cities and governments typically manage a wide variety of assets, and their asset management solutions focus on one class of assets. To modernize, municipalities require a platform that can handle any asset they own and manage. Legacy and undocumented processes can also hold municipalities back – there’s room for decade-old processes to be optimized and standardized for better efficiency. Additionally, municipal bureaus and departments tend to manage their own specific classes of assets. This is often done with stove-piped knowledge and processes, and with technology specific to their respective departments. Disparate asset management solutions that don’t communicate often lead to islands of automation where work between departments and bureaus can’t be easily coordinated. For example, when the water department digs up a stretch of road in April and the sewer department digs up the same stretch of road in May.

Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Improves Efficiency and Service

Until recently, EAM solutions have been financially out of reach for municipalities. EAM has now become a practical solution for cities and governments to gain efficiencies across departments – something that’s difficult to achieve with legacy systems and processes. An enterprise asset management solution:

1. Coordinates Activities Across Departments: With more efficient planning, city crews can eliminate backlogs and provide more timely service.
   
   
2. Maximizes Asset Life Through Predictive Maintenance: EAM can help municipalities shift from a scheduled maintenance strategy to a condition-based strategy to predict the likelihood of future failures.
   
   
3. Enables Management of IoT Infrastructure: By incorporating IoT data into an EAM platform, cities can automate the process of notifying maintenance personnel of an issue.
   
   
4. Enables Mobility for Technicians in the Field: If the EAM is integrated with geospatial data, crews can save time responding to notifications.
   
   
5. Improves Sustainability: By managing asset life cycles with EAM, municipalities can extend the useful life of assets, which in turn reduces waste.
   
   
6. Improves Customer Service: EAM enables municipalities to enable one number to call for all issues.
   
   
7. Reduces Friction Internally: Because cost information is centralized with EAM, financial and accounting professionals no longer need to access multiple asset management systems to see costs.

Advantages of IBM® Maximo® for EAM

IBM Maximo is an industry leading platform for EAM and is the culmination of decades of IBM leadership in asset and operations management. It helps analyse asset data to provide insights that help municipalities make better decisions, enhance efficiency, predict maintenance needs, and extend the life of physical assets. IBM Maximo also:

1. Unifies Municipal Operations: Governments can eliminate the disparate islands of automation and tribal knowledge that hinder productivity.
   
   
2. Adapts to Existing Processes: Maximo adapts to your current business processes, so you don’t have to adapt processes to the software.
   
   
3. Handles Any Asset: It provides industry-leading asset modeling suited for infrastructures (i.e., roadways, water distribution, and sewer collection networks) enabling municipalities to consolidate all asset systems into one platform.
   
   
4. Positions Municipalities for the Future: Maximo can track and monitor nearly any asset so future assets can be accommodated.
   
   
5. Is Tailored to Municipalities: It can help municipalities manage inventory to ensure that parts and supplies are available when needed.
   
   
6. Is a Leading Solution for Government: Maximo is a proven asset management solution for government and is being used by more than 200 municipal customers.
   
   
7. Has Powerful Integrations: The ability to geographically visualize the location of work and assets on a map can help increase workforce efficiency and the quality of customer service.

How to Get Started with an EAM Solution

Like any modernization project, implementing an EAM solution is a journey. The first step is to standardize and document existing business processes and workflows. This is a crucial step because EAM won’t work unless processes are standardized. The second step is to get wide support and buy-in from senior management to operations and maintenance staff. Without comprehensive buy-in from all stakeholders, your EAM may be for nothing. The third step is to work with a partner like Createch. We can help develop a roadmap for EAM success and accelerate EAM deployment by delivering a proven solution on a trusted platform by a trusted team.

With Createch as a trusted partner for modernization, you can enjoy the future now.

Interested in finding out more about enterprise asset management for your municipality? Contact us today!