Flex Insights: The Value of Asset Management

Peter poses the question to George about equipment and how it is crucial for organisations to know the status of their equipment at all times. George offers a persepctive: 

“Equipment is an essential portion of the workplace, having it up to standard is crucial. There are very strict legislations on the certifications of equipment for a good reason. People depend on that. Making sure you get a good lifespan through preventative maintenance, taking the approach of having visibility of your assets on scene becomes absolutely crucial.”

Peter elaborates using the manufacturing industry as an example: 

“A critical asset is down, your production is down. If you don’t have the preventative schedules there, and not consistently checking your equipment… you are leaving yourself open to that machine being down.”

Following on from this point, George emphasises how from a Quality standpoint, a machine being down isn’t the only way that it can be viewed as non-effective:

“If it slows down and there is a 20% fall in productivity, or worse, a 20% fall in quality, there will be a large impact on the final business on the bottom line, but also their reputation.”

Peter and George move onto a key topic of asset management, which is that the person doing the inspection must have the expertise to maintain it. 

“Looking at emergency services, they require assets up and running at will. There is no case of ‘I don’t have it available’. Most of the equipment is life-saving.”

“Similar to the idea of cars, if you look after it, it looks after you. There is the same premise with machinery, do your preventative mainenance, then you will always have it available when you need it.”

The final talking point for Peter and George is around the resources needed to look after assets, and the means in which leadership can verify that the inspection was done at the right time:

“When it is a paper exercise, it is labourious. If you bring in systems that can guide you to where the assets that need to be inspected is, it becomes something that can be combined with other tasks, such as housekeeping audits. “

“Does the timestamp in which the inspector said they did the inspection line up? Did they sign off for something in Dublin, while being in Galway? That extra layer of tracking, knowing that the inspector was standing physically at the asset as they needed to scan it. These are all additional safeguards that can be brought in.”

To find out more about FlexManager’s asset management modules, check out our Plant & Equipment modules, or Book a Demo today. All of our Flex Insights series can be found on our Vimeo.