Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MB03011
Mel Barratt
8 pages
August 2003
SKF Reliability Systems
@ptitudeXchange
5271 Viewridge Court
San Diego, CA 92123
United States
tel. +1 858 496 3554
fax +1 858 496 3555
email: info@aptitudexchange.com
Internet: www.aptitudexchange.com
Asset Register
Introduction
Definitions
Examination of various glossaries of business
and asset management terms might reveal a
variety of definitions including the following:
Asset
Asset Register
the balance sheet, the opposite of liability
[3].
Asset Register
Real Assets
Asset Register
d. Spare parts costs
For these reasons the financial department of
every organization must maintain a "fixed
asset register."
Maintenance activities directly affect items b.,
c., and d. above. There is therefore much
commonality between the needs of the
maintenance manager and his financial
counterpart. To avoid confusion and to ease
communication it is therefore desirable that
the "plant maintenance asset register" should
be reconciled with the "fixed asset register"
that is employed as a foundation stone of the
organization's financial reporting.
Furthermore, if maintenance performance
indicators are to be successful and meaningful
then they must be firmly rooted in the
business goals of the enterprise. This
reinforces the need for reconciliation between
the financial and functional views of the asset
base.
Hierarchy
The number of assets being handled in the
CMMS will be such that individual items will
need to be grouped together in some sort of
classification system, normally referred to as a
"plant hierarchy."
The need for reconciliation between the
"maintenance" and "financial" asset registers
does not mean that the terminology and
taxonomy employed in both must be the same.
Indeed, it will be beneficial to devise an asset
register structure that allows individuals to
view the plant in the manner that they are
most familiar and comfortable with.
Despite the importance of the maintenance
asset register, and its pivotal role in asset
management, there exists no definitive
standard to guide organizations in the
construction of an appropriate taxonomy, or
plant coding convention. This is reflected in
Asset Register
records. Worse still, perhaps the initial error
may not be detected and the goods are reordered on the supplier, in consequence of
which additional downtime is incurred in
waiting for parts that are already languishing
unnoticed in the stores.
Asset Register
This means that the user can describe an asset
almost in plain language, with a high level of
user-friendliness.
In the case of computerized systems, however,
it is typically necessary to devise some sort of
"coding" system to abbreviate this information
in order to accommodate the limitations that
may be imposed by the database field lengths.
Typically, the labels given to assets within
such a system will employ a combination of
these codes that collectively identify a
machine's location, function, and individual
identity. For example, 03 FA ACUN04 may
denote:
03 = Building 3
FA= Final Assembly area
ACUN02 = Air conditioning unit 02
Although perhaps appearing unfriendly at first
sight, users of the system will soon adapt [10].
Another aspect of a well-designed coding
system is the way in which it is constructed to
enable speedy location of data when the
individual identity tag for a machine is not
known. In the simple example given above the
location and machine labels employed,
become increasingly specific from left to
right.
Vendor
Nameplate details
Spares
Maintenance history
Failure history
Asset Register
construction (e.g., number of blades on a fan,
bearing types, number of gear teeth, etc.).
Asset Knowledge
A recent innovation in the field of CMMS and
EAMS is the introduction of decision support
functionality [8, 11].
Particularly when seen as a reactive activity
maintenance decision-making is often
considered to be unsuited to automation.
Developing faults generate symptoms in a
variety of ways. Traditionally the engineer
employs his skills and experience to recognize
these as to formulate a diagnosis, based on
which he then implements appropriate
corrective actions. The often-cited "80-20
rule" is as applicable to maintenance as to any
other area of business. Around eighty percent
of maintenance decisions can probably be
regarded as "routine," being guided by a
combination of common sense and good
engineering practice, tempered with past
experience [7].
In managing the information required to
support a Decision Support System (DCS), an
accurate and up-to-date asset register is again
a pre-requisite. A recording system must be
created to capture and store the knowledge
required for fault recognition, diagnosis, and
corrective task selection. These records must
be linked to assets or equipments as
appropriate.
Conclusion
An asset register is much more than a list of
equipment upon which maintenance is
required. It is the spinal cord of any
maintenance system, be that system
computerized or not. The ability to locate
important machinery information quickly
when needed is crucial in planning effective
maintenance by whatever means.
References
[1] Financial terms glossary, http://www.fccsca.ca/english/financial_tools/financial_glossa
ry.shtml
[2] Harvey, C.R. Hyper textual Finance
Glossary.
http://www.duke.edu/~charvey/Classes/wpg/b
fglosa.htm
[3] Zurich Financial Services,
http://www.zurich.com/zfs/educationcenter/ed
u_home.jhtml
[4] Wolfson Maintenance, glossary,
http://www.wmeng.co.uk/resources/asset.html
[5] Aptitudexchange glossary,
http://www.aptitudexchange.com
[6] IDCON Inc., glossary,
http://www.idcon.com/reliability/definitiona.htm
Asset Register
[9] ISO-14224:1999(E), Petroleum and natural
gas industries Collection and exchange of
reliability and maintenance data for
equipment. http://www.iso.org
[10] Weir, D.B. CMMS Naming Convention
and Data Configuration Simplified.
http://www.reliabilityweb.com/articles/cmms_
naming_convention_01.htm
[11] Huston, E. Intellectual Asset
Management. MB03010.
http://www.aptitudexchange.com