Enterprise Asset Management System (EAM) is a company’s ideal digital solution for greater asset transparency by ensuring prompt attention to asset maintenance and longevity. A company with a production process will have several assets required to be in the best condition to carry out operations. In complex environments that are asset-intensive attempting to manage, track and optimise asset quality and reliability may be difficult. Hence, implementing an EAM is an efficient way to streamline asset management.
Although a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) plays a similar role to EAM in managing maintenance operations by, for instance, scheduling repairs, it differs from EAM. EAM is more powerful and offers a broader range of features, mainly catering to the business industry. Hence it infuses multiple management systems to handle inventory, purchases, documents, accounts, projects, multisite, performance and BI tools into one software solution. It should be noted, however, that a CMMS, also called a Computerized Maintenance Management Information System (CMMIS), can be a part of EAM.
How Are EAM and CMMS Different From Each Other
It is misleading to regard EAM and CMMS as the same since each solution offers different approaches to maintaining assets in an organisation. In fact, there are only a limited number of similarities. They include providing facility managers with the ability to customise the configuration and manage inventory. Both solutions can be accessed remotely as the software is compatible with mobiles and includes preventive maintenance; it manages purchases, requisition, and repairs spares and rotating assets. They are additionally equipped with role-based security controls and keep track of work orders, requests, work planning, and scheduling.
While the above may seem to promote that EAM and CMMS are similar, here are five key differences between them:
Simply Maintaining Assets VS Increasing Their Lifespan
The central aim of CMMS is to maintain assets. Hence, it utilises the power of predictive maintenance and does a great job of assessing any impending risks in the assets in your company. Afterwards, the facility manager can simply schedule a day for maintenance without subjecting the company to any downtime. Thus, managers can prevent operations from being interrupted for an uncertain period. Managers can gain all this, however, even from an EAM system. What makes EAM better is that its end goal is to increase the lifespan of assets. Hence, while predictive maintenance routinely ensures repairs are scheduled at the correct time, EAM can tell you how much lifespan is left in an asset and how you can improve it. Therefore, EAM adopts a more holistic approach by considering the entire operation of the factory from its planning stage to the procurement, operations, and disposal of assets. By collecting data on each stage, EAM offers financial planning until it is disposed of, thereby looking into managing the lifecycle of assets.
Manage Assent Only VS Manage Everything
While CMMS helps companies only in one respect: asset maintenance, an EAM also helps in other ways. It caters to different teams and collects financial, maintenance, operations, production and compliance data. In other words, if a company is asset-intensive but prioritises driving asset uptime, CMMS is suitable. Asset-centric companies that focus on managing the asset lifecycle need to integrate data across all departments, which can only be done with an EAM system. This makes EAM a better digital solution. Thus, EAM manages everything in organisations, whereas CMMS’s role in a company is restricted to one.
Status VS Quality
CMMS provides real-time information on the status of each factory asset. This means it only includes data on whether the asset is functioning correctly and will provide status reports if anything is wrong. It, however, will not be contributing to the actual production of an object by, for instance, ensuring that quality products are made. This is where EAM holds a competitive edge over CMMS. While CMMS is only equipped with a single implementation cycle, EAM has a phased implementation cycle. As a result, EAM monitors how an asset may have affected product quality at each stage of its manufacturing process. This includes assessing the design and installation of the asset.
Which is Better Based on The Size of Business?
Large corporations which have multiple sites may find an EAM more advantageous. In this way, regardless of the number of corporations managed, all asset information, such as its manufacturing details and finances, can be recorded and its performance monitored from one central system. Tracking every small asset and deploying maintenance crews in a large corporation can be easier. The right choice for small companies, however, is not as clear. This is because it will mainly depend on their requirements and prospects. Those requiring preventive maintenance technology can settle for a CMMS as it is also a financially cheaper solution. At the same time, a CMMS will not be suitable for a growing business, and it will subsequently be unable to meet all its goals. An EAM, in other words, is the perfect solution for the long run, whereas CMMS can only meet your immediate needs.
Single VS Multi-Site Support
CMMS can only monitor assets within a single organisation in one location. It may sometimes be able to provide asset maintenance support in a multi-site to a certain extent, although it may not be as efficient as an EAM. EAM can integrate its platform to process all data regarding every asset in each regional factory it holds into one. With a single console, EAM effectively can make a hierarchical order of assets depending on their lifecycle or risk and deploy teams to make the necessary repairs in due time. This also means the management or the board can overlook costs used for maintenance, ensuring that all subsidiaries of a company remain transparent with the headquartered office.
Limited Customisation VS Unlimited Customisation
As previously noted, both EAM and CMMS offer managers to customise their platforms to meet their goals. So what is the difference? CMMS is limited to customising the features it provides according to the factory’s needs. Consider that in a company, asset information is shared across several departments. Each department uses such data for different purposes. A typical CMMS system has the same data set available to all and is specifically meant for maintenance, operations and technicians teams. This is because CMMS only provides detailed information to make intelligent maintenance decisions. However, advanced software like EAM takes the extra step to customise data and present it according to its relevance to the department. It does not restrict itself to producing helpful information for three departments but provides valuable insights to C-level users and accounting and compliance teams. Therefore, EAM offers perspectives based on the very role of each department.
Choose What Works For You
At the end of the day, the choice between an EAM and a CMMS is up to you. Remember that while an EAM may have all of the CMMS features, a CMMS would not have everything. In addition to the critical differences mentioned above, EAM tracks warranty claims, includes interactive schematics, monitors the energy consumption of assets, and focuses on maintenance, repair, overhaul (MRO) and more. Thus, even though an EAM is more expensive than a CMMS, it will be worth every penny. The real question is, are you a futuristic-asset manager that hopes to scale up your company one day?
