Asset Management terminology and concepts

  • 8 minutes

Before you continue with learning about Asset Management, it’s important to understand key terms and concepts that are used when you are working with Asset Management.

  • Asset – The physical property of an organization such as buildings, plants, machinery, equipment, and vehicles.
  • Asset BOM – Asset Bill of Materials (BOM) is a list of spare parts and materials that are used in the lifetime of an asset. An example might be the parts that are associated with a conveyer belt. The parts, such as nuts/bolts, motor, the belt, and so on, are all parts and materials of the asset.
  • Asset management – The process of managing the life cycle of physical assets across departments, facilities, business units, and locations to maximize their use, save money, and improve quality and efficiency.
  • Asset service levels – Used to define the priority of work orders when maintenance is required on an asset.
  • Asset types - Used to manage the maintenance job types (maintenance tasks), asset lifecycle states, counters, asset attributes, condition assessment templates, and asset models that can be selected for an asset. When you create an asset, you must specify the asset type.
  • Attributes – Describes the properties of an asset, including color, size, and dimensions.
  • Counters – Used to capture the usage of an asset, for example, tracking the number of production hours, quantity produced on an asset, and mileage. Maintenance orders can be established on assets based on the counters that are defined on those assets. For example, if a motor has been running for 3,000 miles, an order can be placed for maintenance when that motor reaches 3,000 miles.
  • Counter types – Used to make counter registrations on assets. These types could be production hours, quantity produced, mileage, and temperature.
  • Functional location – Represents an area where an asset is or can be installed.
  • Functional location lifecycle model – This lifecycle model determines the process or flow of lifecycle states for a functional location.
  • Functional location lifecycle state – Defines the various states that a functional location can go through during their life cycle. These states can include Created, Active, and Ended.
  • Functional location type – Used to manage functional location requirements, for example, how assets are installed. Examples of a functional location type include area, plant, yard, and warehouse.
  • Maintenance - The continuous strategy for improving the availability, safety, reliability, and longevity of physical assets.
  • Maintenance requests – Requests made to a manager or planner indicating that an asset needs maintenance or repair.
  • Maintenance schedule – Any repair upkeep work that is performed on an asset within a set timeframe. It details what maintenance tasks are performed and by whom. Based on how maintenance schedules are set up, they can occur at repeating intervals or in response to a work order.
  • Work orders – Maintenance orders placed in the system that describes the maintenance or repair that is needed on an asset and assigns the appropriate resources to complete the maintenance request.