CIMdata highlights the need for modern Service Lifecycle Management solutions coupled with product lifecycle management (PLM) to successfully address the planning, design, production, and operation of long-life assets.
Service Asset Management
What is service asset management (SAM)?
Service asset management (SAM) is a software solution that offers manufacturers and service organizations total visibility of configuration and service knowledge of manufactured items or property. Service asset management is a critical system within a service lifecycle management (SLM) solution, which in turn supports comprehensive product lifecycle management (PLM).
SAM software serves as a data source that comprehensively describes physical assets from their approved configurations to their operational state. This asset and service knowledge ensures an accurate configuration management core that enables all other SLM systems to be asset and product configuration-driven. Service and product teams use service asset management to access, view, and leverage a secure and single integrated source of information. Also called physical asset management, SAM maintains the true configuration and performance data for an operational asset, as well as it's underlying systems, subsystems, and components. Service teams use service asset management software to determine what parts can be used to resolve a service event as quickly as possible. They also use SAM to evaluate the impacts of the proposed product or service-driven changes; they can assess the full impact of these changes on operational characteristics. Results of service activities are captured through service asset management to feed a closed-loop system that enables continuous product and service improvement.
Service technician benefits from service asset management
Service asset management (SAM) functionality
Building on the design, engineering, and manufacturing information generated earlier in the product lifecycle, service asset management software captures and manages a wide range of operational knowledge in the form of a comprehensive, actional digital twin. The digital twin virtually represents the up-to-date physical structure of the managed asset and comprises all the mechanical, electrical/electronic, software, and associated document-related components of each asset as well as the status and history of their operational use.
Information managed by SAM software includes:
- Configuration information that describes physical assets in their as-designed and as-maintained states
- Complete history of each asset and its traceable systems, assemblies, and components
- Technical information that defines each asset’s traceability, life characteristics, life limits, applicability, and utilization
- Regulatory requirements and compliance standards that each asset must meet
- Metrics that track asset availability, reliability, and performance to demonstrate that expected and contractual marks are achieved
Physical asset management is supported by the service bill of materials (sBOM), a managed view service materials requirements that bridges ongoing engineering changes and upgrades of the product to the specific asset’s physical structure requirements. The sBOM prevents discrepancies between ongoing change processes and the physical asset. It also enables full consideration of the services impacts of engineering changes.
Benefits of service asset management (SAM)
As a single source of service knowledge, service asset management helps increase a manufacturer’s or service organization’s productivity by providing rapid, accurate information access and enhanced collaboration.
Additional benefits:
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Improved asset management
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Strengthened asset performance
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Better impact planning
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Increased asset utilization
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Enhanced value chain synergy