Much like the modern EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) emerging from the CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System), there’s another inflection point currently underway…the merging of EAM and APM (Asset Performance Management).

Organizations spend a large amount of capital and resources implementing a single data source to manage assets and work management, surely organizations now what to take it to the next step and optimize the asset in that same data source.

A few questions to ask:

1. Are there any technology barriers? No!

2. Do customers want this? Yes!

3. Are the EAM OEM software suppliers investing in APM? Yes!

Without a doubt, it will help organizations on a few fronts.

1. Removal of Data Silos - A common data set, or removing data silos, is arguably the largest benefit for organizations in merging the EAM and APM products.

   Having a single asset registry, with it’s associated procurement, warranties, inspections, maintenance, certifications, design and implementation, etc.. information in a single data set vs. ten databases, will help organizations drive down costs and avoid failures.

2. Pricing - The price of the APM solutions have defied market supply and demands. Generally, over the last 20 years of APM solutions, the costs of licensing, implementing, and maintaining these solutions have not gone down, but have stayed the same or have increased.

   Does market forces not dictate the price and ease of implementation to go down over a period of time? Apparently not for APM and Inspection Management systems.

   By shifting the functions of APM into the larger EAM pool will have a dramatic impact in driving down costs due to the economies of scale.

3. Sustainability - There’s a constant in most organizations, the EAM. However, most organizations have an APM or Mechanical Integrity/Inspection software solution changed out every 5 years as different people come into the organization and/or they feel the current solution no longer meets their needs.

   By embedding APM as a critical function within the EAM, this ensure a sustainable software within organizations.

4. A focus from true tech companies - For the most part, service organizations, and not technology organizations, have developed software to address APM over the last two decades. Let’s face it, these organization do not think like Silicon Valley. Their business models are based on selling man-hours and not the end user or technology innovation. This results in software that rarely has a modern approach and/or find limitations in scalability.

   As technology companies take on APM apps, the business models (licensing and delivery), technologies (mobility, cloud, etc..), and user experiences will start to improve.

There’s a large push by software companies and customers to move to the cloud. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have made a large investment and customers are signing up in large numbers. Additionally, the EAM software manufacturers (SAP, Infor, and Maximo) have invested heavily to ensure they are well positioned for the demand and future computing.

SAP has hyper-focused by adding functionality to their solution to get closer to the physical asset outside of traditional finance, this includes their SAP AIN (Asset Intelligence Network), SAP ASPM (Asset Strategy and Performance Management) and SAP PdMS (Predictive Maintenance and Service).

This shift in computing models (web to cloud) is a great opportunity for organization to assess their current state and move to the cloud.