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Industry 4.0 demands a new approach to asset management

Technology

It is critical for organisations to manage their asset base with future flexibility, scalability and control, says Kim Custeau, global asset performance management lead, AVEVA

Businesses acquire other businesses, sites are extended, new buildings and production lines are created as obsolete ones are closed. 

This is where current technology makes things very exciting. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), organisations can do much more than understand their asset structure and relationships. Because assets can talk to each other and communicate data, businesses can understand cause, effects, faults and performance on a much wider and more detailed scale. Something commonly known as Asset Performance Management (APM) 4.0.

Endless possibilities of APM 4.0

Because of APM 4.0 companies are able to exploit asset usage in a more end-to-end way. This is leading to a range of new possibilities with immediate benefits: saving costs and enhancing ecological footprints, reducing asset downtime and increasing the return on investments.

When you add the development of digital technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twins and both predictive and prescriptive maintenance, APM 4.0 is transforming the way companies produce goods to achieve the maximum level of production efficiency while also increasing sustainability. It funnels multiple silos and formats of information into a single view. Visualisation capabilities garner real-time, actionable insights. In fact, some of our customers have reported improvement in workforce effectiveness by 25%, increased asset availability by up to 15% and reduced maintenance and inspection costs by 50% by using APM 4.0 strategies.

A game-changer for businesses

The combination of visualisation tools, simulation, modelling, and real-time data acquisition is a game-changer for businesses. Using these tools in the cloud means data can be shared across the global community of suppliers, sales, operations, and customers, so decisions can be made collaboratively and efficiently.

And the good news is that organisations do not need to take on a massive redesign or make huge investments to achieve value from pursuing APM 4.0. In many cases, portions of the technology pillars are already part of a plant’s portfolio today. All that is needed to get started pursuing APM 4.0 is the vision, a defined architecture that supports APM 4.0 and the decision to make future technology investments that align with that architecture. 

For more information on AVEVA and its APM 4.0 expertise, please visit, sw.aveva.com/asset-performance.