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What Is Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)?

Enterprise asset management (EAM) is the process of tracking, managing, and analyzing asset performance and costs through the whole asset lifecycle to maximize asset life, reduce costs, optimize operations and more.

What Is EAM?

An Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) process refers to a suite of tools, practices and software – including an EAM software -- that allows organizations to execute effective facility management. With a comprehensive EAM process in place, organizations can effectively maintain, control and analyze their physical assets and infrastructure during all phases of the asset lifecycle, including acquisition, maintenance and disposal.

Though often compared to a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), a robust EAM generally offers a wider range of capabilities and features, including:

An inventory management system
Document and knowledge management systems
Multi-site management tools
A purchasing management system
An accounting system and financial management

A project management system
Performance management tools
Labor management tools
Service contract management
Lockout tagout procedures

This broad suite of capabilities gives asset managers full transparency into the historical and present state of assets so they can optimize asset quality and utilization, improve uptime, reduce operational costs and ultimately increase revenue and ROI.

EXPLORE OUR ENTERPRISE ASSET MANAGEMENT SOLUTION

What is the Difference Between EAM and a CMMS?

Though the terms are often used interchangeably, EAM and computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) are very different tools. A CMMS can ultimately fit under the EAM umbrella as CMMS tools focus more on asset maintenance during the operational phase of the asset lifecycle. An EAM, on the other hand, provides a range of features and capabilities to track, manage, and analyze asset performance and costs through the whole asset lifecycle.

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Benefits of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)

The right EAM can help your organization track, manage, analyze and optimize your assets through all stages of the asset lifecycle, from acquisition to disposal. This can lead to marked improvements in transparency and preventive maintenance capabilities, which translates to saved time, increased efficiency and lower costs. An EAM can also help your organization:

Streamline Inventory Management

Efficient maintenance requires optimized inventory management. An EAM can facilitate this with barcode scanning, inventory tracking capabilities and visibility into parts utilization and cost.

Maximize Asset Lifetime

The historical data, real-time data and analytical tools in an EAM can allow you to extend the availability, reliability and usability of your physical assets, thereby increasing both efficiency and ROI.

Extend Asset Lifecycle

Work From Anywhere

Mobile, multi-site capabilities and features – including SaaS or hybrid deployments, smartphone capabilities and the ability to read meters, capture electronic signatures and use bar codes or RFID – can maximize remote capabilities and facilitate social distancing.

Minimize Downtime

An EAM an automatically track downtime and allow users to manually log downtime during breakdowns. This can minimize communication concerns and costs associated with unplanned downtime.

Simplify

Audits

Easily connect your EAM to financial software to streamline audits and sync with finance or other relevant departments.

Centralize

Asset Data

The right EAM will include all information about your physical assets in one centralized system, including repair histories, energy usage, audit trails, purchase order, lifecycle costs and warranty records.

Modernize Maintenance Operations

AI-powered remote monitoring and enhanced asset tracking and traceability allows for modern operations and maximized decision-making.

Enable Benchmarking

An EAM will provide visibility into maintenance performance across your organization to enable benchmarking, best practice sharing and performance management.

It used to take us three to four hours to go search for paper records. With Maintenance Connection, it’s almost immediate. As soon as you run the report, [the information] is there. Now we’re able to sit in a conference room and pull it up on the screen for the auditor to view in real time.
- MIKE MCCORMICK
Maintenance Manager
Before Maintenance Connection, we were having problems [maintaining] our vehicles… Now the maintenance technicians can make sure that all of the fleet is being serviced and that everything’s in working order. We’re able to keep up to date with all the required maintenance, whether it be weekly, quarterly or annually.
- ANDRE FERRARO
Facility and Asset Management Clerk
With help from Maintenance Connection…we can look at staff’s productivity. We can see where the work’s being put in, whether it be a service report, a work order, a project…We are able to look and see where we’re deficient and then learn from there whether we need extra staffing.
- DEBBIE HONGELL
Biomed Support Technician
Before Maintenance Connection, it was very time-consuming to hand write these written reports and get information relayed. Now, with literally the click of a button, technicians can input their labor reports, their hours, equipment downtime, and anybody all over our facility can log in in real time.
- KYLER KEEL
CMMS Coordinator

Features of EAM

Work Order Management

Key EAM features – like automated purchases, part tracking and big-picture metrics – provide technicians and administrators with the information they need to effective schedule work orders, diagnose concerns, assign technicians and stay ahead of upcoming work.

Asset Lifecycle Management

A robust EAM can provide the asset information and documentation needed to decrease unplanned downtime, streamline inventory, extend asset life and move from reactive to preventive maintenance practices.

MRO Materials and Supply Chain Management

An EAM can help your team easily order, track and find the MRO items that your business needs to effectively complete repairs. This can lower costs and streamline your supply chain management.

Safety

Regulation

An EAM can help you maintain your team’s health and safety by providing straightforward, easily accessible safety requirements for every job, simplifying audits and reducing safety risk using incident analysis and process change management.

Labor Management

An EAM can help you effectively assess, train and certify your employees and contractors by making safety procedures accessible, simplifying audit logs and allowing those in charge to track safety training.

Service Contract Management

Simplify contract management with your customers, vendors, partners and employees to mitigate risks, maximize compliance, increase ROI and decrease contract-related costs and inefficiencies.

Financial Management

Get a comprehensive look at your finances and cut costs by streamlining key processes like preventive maintenance, calibration management, work order management and purchase order and facility rental management.

Reporting and Analytics

If you cannot effectively gather, assess and use your equipment data, your operations will be inefficient and under-productive. EAM software can help you extract meaningful data to pinpoint preventive maintenance needs and manage KPIs.

Vendor Management

Your EAM can help with vendor management by tracking information like certificates of insurance (COIs) and activity history. It can also help you rate vendors so stakeholders can compare performance and develop a preferred vendor list.

Document and Knowledge Management

By centralizing all asset-related information and documents, an EAM can improve the quality of work from your team while simultaneously improving their efficiency and identifying any areas of concern.