Dépêches

79% Of Businesses in Study at Risk Due to Poor Asset Integrity Management Technology

Dépèche transmise le 28 mars 2012 par Business Wire

79% Of Businesses in Study at Risk Due to Poor Asset Integrity Management Technology

ITASCA, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--While many industrial companies in a recent study report having asset integrity management plans and sustainability plans on file, only 21 percent are using information technology that would ensure those plans are being followed.

“A process manufacturer, during a catastrophic equipment failure, may lose revenue or inventory”

This, according to experts at IFS North America, means that adequate measures are not being followed that would protect stakeholder investments - and in many cases the environment - by preventing asset failure.

IFS North America conducted the study of more than 200 executives from medium sized to large companies with help from Mint Jutras Principal Analyst Cindy Jutras. While 58 percent of study respondents report having an asset integrity management or risk mitigation plan in place, few are using centralized enterprise technology like an enterprise asset management (EAM) system to track the key elements of that plan, including documents about the equipment and assets themselves and information on the training and certification of employees working on the assets.

Asset integrity management ensures that an asset, like a piece of equipment or industrial facility, is operated in such a way that it can generate productivity and in many cases avoid damaging the environment. Effective asset integrity management provide mechanisms to see that the people, systems, processes and resources that deliver integrity are in place, in use and will perform when required over the whole lifecycle of the asset.

According to IFS North America Director for Asset Management Patrick Zirnhelt, asset integrity management ought to be a key concern for any stakeholder of a business that relies on productivity and viability of capital assets.

“A process manufacturer, during a catastrophic equipment failure, may lose revenue or inventory,” Zirnhelt said. “But for companies in the oil and gas industry, mining or power generation, asset failure can also involve health and safety breaches, environmental damage and civil or even criminal liability. Asset integrity management planning and execution is all about risk mitigation, regardless of how much is at stake. What our study found is that because data regarding the asset are being kept in spreadsheets, in various files on servers or in hard copy, it is almost impossible to ensure that asset data is current, that unqualified workers are not installing or maintaining equipment and that any type of asset integrity plan is being followed.

“The significance of a system like IFS Applications is that you can look at the record of a piece of equipment and see all of the documents associated with it. You can see the manual, specifications, standard operating procedures for repair, as-builds, diagnostics, documentation on equipment modifications - all in one place and accessible to everyone who may need to view or modify them in real time. When you have documents regarding that asset in an unstructured format, a lot of times they will be out of date, people won’t be able to find them, and that can lead to failures. In addition, IFS Applications offers the added benefit of managing the entire supply chain of repair parts ensuring you have the right parts, in the right place, at the right time.”

The full study on asset integrity management is available free for download at http://download.ifsworld.com/studies.

About IFS

IFS is a public company (OMX STO: IFS) founded in 1983 that develops, supplies, and implements IFS Applications™, a component-based extended ERP suite built on SOA technology. IFS focuses on industries where any of four core processes are strategic: service & asset management, manufacturing, supply chain and projects. The company has 2,000 customers and is present in approximately 60 countries with 2,800 employees in total.

For more information about IFS, please visit: www.IFSWORLD.com