Asset Performance Management (APM) Software

Asset Performance Management (APM) software is a set of tools and processes designed to optimize the performance, reliability, and efficiency of physical assets, such as machinery, equipment, and infrastructure, within an organization. It helps organizations monitor, maintain, and manage their assets throughout their lifecycle, from acquisition to decommissioning. A good APM software should give organizations the ability to integrate with EAM, CMMS, historians and other data sources, while providing interoperable and composable applications to achieve business outcomes.

Asset Performance Management (APM), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), CMMS, SCADA, and historians are all used for asset management.

Enterprise Asset Management, or EAM, systems manage the entire lifecycle of physical assets within an organization. This includes planning, acquisition, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of assets. APM systems focus specifically on optimizing the performance, reliability, and efficiency of assets, often through advanced analytics and predictive techniques and leverage EAM data for advanced maintenance programs.

Asset management software is designed to help organizations manage, track, and optimize their physical assets throughout their lifecycle. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools to ensure that assets are used efficiently, maintained properly, and accounted for accurately.

Asset Performance Management (APM) provides organizations the ability to identify fixed or rotating assets that require digital maintenance programs. APM starts with the ingestion of mission-critical data from sensors, edge devices, IT systems, OT systems, and other key sources that provide insights about how an asset is performing. By creating a central location for this data, Asset Performance Management creates the ability to align operational maintenance best practices with digital best practices.

Using the identified data, true Asset Performance Management software gives users the ability to create asset strategies, identify risk, perform condition-based maintenance, deploy connected worker solutions, perform predictive maintenance, and ensure fixed asset compliance with mechanical integrity workflows. Asset Performance Management also provides a scalable foundation for artificial intelligence use cases such as computer vision, robotics, or generative AI.

Asset Performance Management (APM) software delivers a comprehensive range of benefits focused on boosting reliability, cutting costs, and driving operational efficiency.

By leveraging real-time monitoring and data analytics, Asset Performance Management helps organizations predict potential equipment failures, reduce unplanned downtime, and ensure longer operational lifespans for critical assets. This proactive maintenance approach not only reduces the need for emergency repairs and costly spare parts but also significantly lowers overall maintenance expenses and capital expenditures.

Asset Performance Management also enhances safety and compliance by continuously monitoring equipment to ensure it operates within safe limits and adheres to regulatory standards, with automated alerts and reports supporting quick response to potential hazards.

Operational efficiency improves through better visibility into asset performance, enabling data-driven decision-making and streamlined workflows.

Centralized data empowers cross-functional teams to collaborate more effectively, resulting in smarter strategies for maintenance and asset management.

Ultimately, APM software supports a shift from reactive to proactive operations, extending asset lifespans, improving resource allocation, and creating a more resilient and cost-efficient organization.

The required steps of a comprehensive asset performance management program are changing rapidly. However, the required first steps remain relatively unchanged, and are as follows:

1. Identify business and asset challenges that are impacting your organization’s operational excellence.

2. Develop a cross functional team of subject matter experts, OT system experts, IT experts, business line leaders, and corporate functions with KPIs to increase identified metrics around challenges identified.

3. Develop a top-down approach that includes your APM Executive Sponsor, APM Project Owner, APM Champion, and functional team of future end-users.

4. Generate a mapping of systems, data, assets, and other elements of the program that must be included in the APM solution.

5. Perform a criticality analysis based on the key KPIs that are looking to be improved and document the high, medium, and low criticality assets that impact things such as availability, production, etc.

6. Ensure the data from systems that are operating on the above (Step 5) assets is able to be ingested, validated, and stored where the functional team can access it.

7. Determine the type of maintenance program that aligns to the level of criticality (reactive, time-based, condition-based, predictive, prescriptive, etc.)

8. Compose Asset Performance Management applications that merge step 5, 6, and 7 into a contextualized view of your assets.

9. Align operational best practices to APM software to enable engineers to use Asset Performance Management within their current workflow.

10. Continuously monitor, adapt, and refine both the software and operational elements of Asset Performance Management with the data and outcomes being collected and tracked by APM.

The industries that benefit most from Asset Performance Management  are typically Asset-intensive industries, including full-stream oil & gas (upstream, midstream, downstream), power generation, mining & metals, pulp & paper, specialty chemicals, advanced manufacturing, and renewables can benefit the most from Asset Performance Management.

Contrary to some of the current perspectives on Asset Performance Management, predictive maintenance is just a piece of the overall asset management puzzle. While important, doing predictive maintenance properly requires advanced data strategies, clear alignment on asset criticality, and operational alignment on how or when to use predictive alerts to make business decisions.

At GE Vernova, predictive maintenance provides immense value on highly critical assets such as turbines, boilers, reactors, or any other fixed or rotating equipment that plays a major role in production. Predictive maintenance gives operators, engineers, and corporate functions the ability to remotely monitor assets, dispatch maintenance in advance, plan for spare parts, and even avoid catastrophic failures. Predictive maintenance provides an added level of fidelity into your assets when deployed in tandem with risk-based, condition-based, and time-based activities.

Asset Performance Management (APM) software helps reduce operational costs by enabling organizations to transition from reactive to proactive maintenance strategies. Through continuous monitoring, advanced analytics, and predictive insights, Asset Performance Management identifies potential equipment issues before they lead to costly failures or unplanned downtime. This reduces the need for emergency repairs and minimizes the reliance on expensive spare parts and labor-intensive interventions.

Asset Performance Management also optimizes maintenance schedules and resource allocation, ensuring that personnel, tools, and materials are used efficiently and only when needed. Additionally, by extending the lifespan of critical assets and avoiding premature replacements, organizations can significantly lower capital expenditures.

Overall, APM software drives smarter, more cost-effective operations by aligning maintenance efforts with actual asset performance and condition.