In the world of telecoms and utilities, geospatial asset management and enterprise asset management systems are indispensable. While geospatial solutions keep track of asset locations and interconnections (relationships), EAM systems help to manage asset conditions and maintenance processes.
Those systems need to work together but they are separate and extremely complex. To marry them means a very expensive wedding. In fact, the cost of integrating geospatial and EAM systems can be larger than the sum cost of both systems. Once integrated, the databases that each system pulls from must match completely.
For instance, an EAM will create a work order, and the geospatial system links all the designs and asset data needed for that work order. If the integration breaks down and the work order is lost, so is the accompanying design and planning work. Such a failure costs time and money to re-engineer.
Just keeping the databases of the two systems aligned is a difficult job, when contractor plans don’t necessarily match the as-built infrastructure and maintenance reports from the field aren’t always timely or complete. On average, the data matches only 80 percent of the time.
Utilities and telecoms have long devoted in-house resources to knitting these two indispensable systems into one and keeping them both running and compatible, with continual software patches and database synchronization. However, the job of these companies is to maintain their physical networks, not their IT interfaces. The additional work of maintaining separate, but integrated systems is a distraction from their core business.
Moving forward, the industry needs to focus on comprehensive asset lifecycle management through a “smartEAM” approach – one system to govern asset locations, attributes, conditions and work processes. With a smartEAM system, operators could pull from a single database for planning, design, construction, maintenance and more.
Say an electric utility wanted to determine where to build the next substation on its grid to maximize the efficiency of powering homes in a growing area. A smart EAM could aid in planning and designing the network and calculating the cost of the materials, labor and other necessities of construction. The same goes for a telecom making plans to expand its fiber optic network.
In addition to adding efficiency, a smart EAM system would significantly reduce the total cost of ownership, since the owner would be dealing with just one system instead of two. It would save the cost of employing experts to maintain two separate, complex systems with separate interfaces. And it could help lower maintenance and support costs.
In the age of digital transformation, companies need to consider not only which data and systems to move from physical to digital, but also how to improve their legacy IT. By breaking down the silos between geospatial asset management and enterprise asset management, a smart EAM can deliver the much-needed “single source of truth” for lifecycle asset management that can transform planning and operations.
Disclaimer: Views Expressed are Author's Own. Geospatial World May or May Not Endorse it
