Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)

The professional management of physical assets is a new business discipline. It encompasses the technical complexities of reliability, performance, maintenance, safety and environmental issues, with the commercial pressures of cost accountability, business objectives, compliance and risk exposures. Assets, in any commercial set up, include the monetary investments, Property, plants, equipment, infrastructure and its human resources. Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), therefore, is an emerging inter-disciplinary field that combines technical issues of asset reliability, safety and performance with financial and managerial requirements. Asset owners are increasingly focused on improving competitive advantage and cost-effectiveness but are handicapped by lack of technical and managerial skills and processes specific to EAM at all levels of their organization. This paper provides an overview of the dynamic processes shaping EAM. Asset Owners are shaping the future of education programs in EAM by (1) determining the body of knowledge and associated competencies, (2) recognizing the need for continuous learning in this dynamic field for personnel at all levels and across different functional groups in organisations, and (3) requiring the use of systematic, data-driven, lifecycle and risk based decision-making to improve competitive advantage and reduce costs