In decades past, asset management was a solitary endeavor. Each company and manufacturer focused on maintaining and improving their assets without any additional input from other organizations. Service events, repairs, and uninterrupted operations were the responsibility of the asset manager and they were required to devote the time, attention, and efforts needed to meet this responsibility - no matter what it cost personally.
Because of this, many asset managers have been unable to separate work from the rest of their lives, constantly worrying about the state of their asset compliance and the security of their employment. Though this has been the status quo for decades, the industry is experiencing a shift. Isolated, inward-focused thinking is giving way to industry collaboration and the benefits created by shared intelligence.
For asset owners and managers, these changes are affecting the focus, responsibilities, and pressures of their jobs. As you work to maintain the health and compliance state of your assets, consider joining the change and improving asset management through collaboration.
What Does Collaboration Look Like For Me?
As an asset manager, you are concerned with every event or process that involves your assets. You schedule regular maintenance and emergency repairs, maintain asset documentation, and track the compliance state of each of your assets. Since these responsibilities often require working across multiple non-compatible systems, you can never enjoy full peace of mind about your organization’s compliance.
With the current shift in asset lifecycle management, collaboration gives you the ability to decrease your responsibilities by sharing them with other asset stakeholders. When working with maintenance schedules, for example, you now have the option to collaborate with your vendors. When your service providers can view your assets’ maintenance schedules and share a common storage option for service certificates, you are only responsible to ensure the asset is ready when they arrive and sign off on the work done.
For you, collaboration means working with other asset stakeholders to reach a common goal: overall asset compliance and a healthy asset lifecycle. By working together to reach this goal, you can gather and share knowledge about the industry as a whole. With fewer responsibilities and a more accurate picture of the industry’s future, you can minimize your downtime and the pressures involved with maintaining your compliance all on your own.
How Can I Use Collaboration in My Organization?
Like many major changes, using collaboration to improve your asset management starts with a shift in thinking. Rather than being part of an isolated organization, you are now joining an ecosystem of like-minded people. As you begin to consider and incorporate collaboration in your organization, use these tips to guide you towards a new, collaboration-focused mindset.
- Share a maintenance calendar
Each of your assets require regular maintenance to stay compliant, but scheduling these services with your vendor, on top of any emergency maintenance, can consume your time and attention. By sharing a collaborative scheduling calendar with your service provider, you can allow them to view your regular maintenance deadlines weeks before they’re due. When you can coordinate these service events together, you decrease your responsibilities without jeopardizing your compliance. And, when your assets need emergency maintenance, you can easily minimize downtime and streamline effective schedule coordination.
- Share documentation
Accurate and recorded service certificates and asset documentation are vital for full compliance. By including document sharing in your asset lifecycle collaboration, you can create a comprehensive picture of your compliance state without having to check every asset, day-by-day. With the ability to view and sign off on service certificates as soon as they’re available, you can have better control over your organization and assets. Your service providers will also be able to work faster with increased access to your documentation, helping you decrease your downtime, save money, and maintain your effectiveness.
- Join a collaborative ecosystem
More than anything, asset lifecycle collaboration offers the ability to work closely with other stakeholders in your industry. Collaborating with other asset owners, manufacturers, and regulatory bodies allows you to better understand the industry’s direction and set the right benchmarks to best position your company for success. When you join a collaborative ecosystem, you become part of a growing, collective intelligence that encourages innovation. With a group of like-minded stakeholders, working together to solve problems and create solutions that improve the industry as a whole, everyone benefits.
Knowing what to do is only the beginning. To fully embrace collaboration and the changes it is bringing to the industry, you need the right tools. For the next part of this series, we’ll explore the collaborative ecosystem that is transforming asset and service event management.
