Following a period of waning interest in standalone enterprise asset management (EAM) applications over the last couple of years -- during which many EAM market leaders such as Datastream were acquired by large ERP vendors (Infor, in the case of Datastream) -- EAM seems to be making its way back to the forefront of manufacturers' minds. As their workers age and increasing numbers of services are outsourced, companies are facing the looming need to round up and optimize their asset management processes sooner rather than later. Other factors such as increasingly stringent regulatory and security requirements, as well as energy and environmental conservation efforts, are also bringing asset management back into focus.

According to a recent study by research firm ARC Advisory Group, the worldwide market for EAM currently stands at $1.5 billion and is estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.6%, surpassing $2.1 billion in 2011. In addition to reasons like the ones mentioned above, ARC predicts continued consolidation in the EAM market will drive customers either to upgrade existing software or seek alternatives to meet their EAM/CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) requirements. As manufacturers react to a changing landscape, software vendors must keep up by providing functionality to meet modern needs.

Technology

Anders Lif, global industry director for manufacturing at IFS, acknowledges the challenge vendors have had in adapting their development strategies to customers' changing environments. "As a supplier of software, [the EAM landscape] has changed. We used to deliver traditional maintenance systems and work with companies that were 'one' company," Lif says.

Today, he describes the common scenario where a company encompasses disparate groups that are part of separate organizations. For example, a venture capital firm might own a plant but have no hands-on involvement in the operations. An internal management group might run the operations, while an outsourcing partner might be responsible for maintaining the assets. "This is seen not only in EAM, but in other industrial areas; while supply chains have become much more efficient, other challenges are introduced because the players that participate are so specialized in their tasks," Lif says.

To address this new landscape, he says, software needs to be configured for different groups of people that service the same plant but that might not be part of the same organization. EAM software's data security features, therefore, must play a leading role and contain controls based on authorization while still allowing teams to share best practices.

Another key area, Lif says, is the need for detailed graphical user interfaces in asset management software, customized so that various users can parse and analyze information according to their needs.

Marty Osborn, senior director of EAM industry marketing at enterprise software provider Infor, also sees this trend, and says more companies are looking to take a proactive approach to real-time data by tying in alarms to their equipment and monitoring maintenance activities in real time. Osborn also points to the concept of "lean maintenance," an approach to streamlining processes and the execution of maintenance activities. Faced with modern challenges, it's more important than ever for manufacturers to extend the life of assets, while getting more product out the door with fewer people, he says.

Another trend related to lean efforts is the growing "green" movement, Osborn says, whereby companies need to be proactive in their maintenance. When manufacturers examine their operations for sources of heavy energy use, the focus often turns to maintenance. "Manufacturers are very large consumers of energy," he says. "As costs continually rise, running equipment can become their biggest expenditure." If companies are trying to meet goals such as bringing consumption levels down to where they were 10 years ago, they need to do more than switch to more efficient light bulbs. Monitoring output and gleaning the necessary data are keys to these efforts. "There's a real push in this area of better data, of running maintenance equipment at optimum levels and looking at equipment in terms of performance standards," Osborn concludes.

Here's a look at the 10 most-often compared enterprise asset management (EAM) products within the Product Comparison Tool on ManagingAutomation.com (5/1/07 - 7/31/07), with information on the degree of EAM functionality that each product supports, according to MA's directory database: