You’ve got your asset register, but do you know the condition of your critical assets and components?

We often hear our regional transit organizations mentioning problems with aging assets and critical components either;

• • Not being replaced in a timely manner
  • Deteriorating much faster than anyone anticipated

This can result in unexpected capital spending to bring the condition up to a fit for purpose level again.

The delays in rectifying such problems often lead to assets frequently (or for long periods) being taken offline whilst trying to catch up with replacements. The increased amount of corrective work required can negatively affect customer satisfaction.

4 common causes of these issues :

1. Expected end of life.

The current system doesn’t support or wasn’t set up to track the expected end of life. Not only for ‘whole of asset’ but for critical components that may have a a different end of life timeline.

Example:
We were recently approached by an operator-maintainer having issues with handrails for their escalators which have an expected useful life of 5 years. Without a system in place to get notified when components were nearing the 5 year mark meant they had to work in a more reactive mode attending to replacement after failure rather than planned replacements.

For expensive or complex assets there may also be lengthy lead times from identification of required replacement, processing of order, to delivery. This means a well-defined asset lifecycle plan needs to also factor in expected turn-round times from when a replacement is selected to when that asset or component is put in to service or risk operating assets that are no longer considered in a good condition.

2. No strategy for condition assessments

An expected end of useful life date provides you a target date to put on your radar but depending on the environment, maintenance, and utilization through the asset lifecycle, you will find that your assets and components deterioration may vary greatly from OEM provided estimated life.

Without a well-defined and executed strategy for tests and inspections to assess actual asset condition, your decisions are limited on estimated data and past maintenance history without taking actual condition into account.
To support your strategic decisions your asset database should be able to not only capture regular condition assessments but also map these against expected decay curve over the long term to help analyze and forecast refurbishment and replacement needs based on current condition as well as the rate of deterioration.

3. No process for prioritization for capital planning.

Without a full asset lifecycle management process the selection of candidates for mid-life rehabilitation or end-of-life replacement is likely to be inconsistent at best. Adding to the risks of negative customer impact from deteriorating assets or service outages, there is also the risk of unplanned capital expenditure when aging assets are suddenly brought into the spotlight.

Timely replacement of required assets is in the interest of both operators and asset owners. The asset lifecycle management process should ensure planning of upcoming capital projects for refurbishments and replacements is prioritized correctly and can be planned and budgeted for with short to long term views to ensure required funding is allocated as required.

4. Systems falling short of requirements

Asset management systems not designed to meet industry specific requirements of strategic asset management or legacy systems not maintained to keep up with evolving technologies are often supplemented by other third party systems or workaround tools that do not allow for easy integration with the asset database resulting in an archipelago of data repositories that do not allow for holistic view of all relevant asset and maintenance data to support your strategic decision.

Example :

A client recently shared their frustrations with operating a legacy system. It’s too old to be configured for a required mobile application that allows managing maintenance work and inspections in the field in off- as well as online mode. Pending a major upgrade, the organization in question is limited to using third party smart forms application that doesn’t meet all the requirements for collection of data in the field.

Asset and maintenance management is business critical for transport organisations and consideration must be given to a selection of appropriate tools that support and will continue to evolve to meet the industry’s specific requirements.

Maintenance of the system with regular upgrades may be seen as onerous and ‘not required functionality’ when the system is first installed. But the inability to add-on functions, and potentially even get technical support in case of disaster, is a risk that only increases with the passing of time.

Trapeze recognized long ago the value of not only providing customers with software for life but also assisting with the upgrades to test and production systems to ensure the systems are up to date and incorporated as part of our standard support offering.

Trapeze EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) system has been developed over 30 years specifically to support transport asset owners and maintainers to effectively manage the condition of their assets from day-to-day planned and corrective maintenance and material management to strategic asset life cycle management including age and condition tracking, asset performance analysis and capital planning to execution of asset rebuilds, campaigns and replacements.

For more information about our asset and maintenance management solutions or demonstration and discussion on how Trapeze can help your organization, reach out to our regional head office based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.