The Relationship Between CMMS/EAM and Stelar

It is hard to talk about asset maintenance operations without mentioning CMMS or an EAM module in an organization's ERP. This type of software is extremely useful for maintenance managers and planners alike. Senior management will also benefit from CMMS, as equipment will be more available for greater production.

It is an essential tool for planning, monitoring and managing maintenance operations within an organization. It can also be used to access a history of maintenance tasks, schedule maintenance interventions, track component inventory and manage maintenance costs. However, most CMMS are rarely dynamic, and it is particularly difficult to create or manage performance indicators. This is especially true for CMMS integrated with ERP.

The promise of CMMS/EAM is great: to optimize resources by tracking staff time and spare parts; to minimize downtime by submitting to the maintenance program in place; to increase equipment life by minimizing wear and tear on parts through preventive or proactive maintenance; and to optimize budget returns through rigorous budget tracking. What organizations expect from their maintenance group is to have equipment available to meet operational planning, thus enabling them to achieve their production targets.

For many organizations, adherence to maintenance programs is already a major step towards greater maturity in asset management. Digitization and automation of processes encourage staff to work effectively with the programs in place. Economic, social, and environmental contexts are forcing organizations to gain a better understanding of the real condition of assets in terms of production performance, energy consumption and sustainability.

Primary processing plants in the mining sector are aging, as are port and rail infrastructures. Investments to replace or rebuild certain critical and major assets are imposing and sometimes illogical from an economic and ecological point of view. Even more so as regular maintenance based on the actual condition of the asset is proven to extend its useful life.

In this context, it is more necessary than ever to adopt best practices in asset management as part of an organization's strategic planning. While ISO 55 000 certification from the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) is not a prerequisite, it does provide a frame of reference and a relevant procedure for making better strategic decisions.

One of the pillars of asset management is actionable asset knowledge. In this context, the structured centralization of information providing a global view of assets supports decision-making. Most of the time, this information is scattered across a variety of formats: CMMS, ERP, Excel budget files, inspection software, PDF inspection reports, data acquisition software (PI, vibration, oil, etc.), and so on. It is all about assembling the right information to establish trends that feed into business decisions to achieve the organization's strategic planning objectives. Stelar plays a key role in this respect.

The Stelar definition is as follows:  

A platform based on asset integrity and reliability engineering practices capable of helping plan capital investments for an organization, considering asset health, maintenance, and growth budgets, as well as environmental aspects.  

An APM+ is thus a data management platform for the entire lifecycle of an organization's assets, maximizing their utilization and minimizing their total cost of ownership. It enables relevant data to be collected, centralized, and structured for high-value analysis and simulation. An APM+ supports well-documented decision-making at all organizational levels and serves as a cross-functional communication tool.

An APM+ platform like Stelar is no substitute for a CMMS/EAM. Both need each other to fulfill their promise to organizations, i.e., optimizing equipment performance to achieve efficient operations with the fewest possible resources. In short, an APM+ is needed to determine the actual condition of an asset, resulting in concerted, planned actions in the CMMS.

Both systems are essential for maintenance operations, asset condition awareness, planning and KPI communication via a dashboard. Obviously, the two systems do not compete, but play their respective roles.

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Maintenance Operations

CMMS

Maintenance operations are at the heart of CMMS/EAM. The software enables the maintenance manager to coordinate the activities of personnel and the acquisition of parts required to properly execute the maintenance program. It is also essential to say that CMMS/EAM is a valuable tool for compliance with safety standards.

STELAR

Stelar focuses on inspection elements. It is an integral part of maintenance operations. The forms, which include a grid of defect severity according to material, structure the inspection operations of employees or subcontractors appropriately. In this way, the data collected enables maintenance professionals to adapt their program and future interventions.

Asset Condition

CMMS

Although some CMMS/EAM venture to offer functions for asset condition analysis, few are based on an engineering approach to asset integrity and reliability. Most of these systems support maintenance program planning only. They also keep track of maintenance activities. For example, it is possible to go back and evaluate work orders during an unscheduled shutdown, but reliability engineers rarely obtain the information they need to analyze and discover the cause. Other systems can calculate asset availability and thus determine productivity.

STELAR

The specialty of a product like Stelar is to determine the condition of an asset using guided forms, sensors (vibration, thermography, oil quality, temperature, thickness, etc.) and historical data for analysis. Stelar determines the asset health index based on the organization's risk matrix and assesses its residual life. Asset condition, OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), maintenance interventions and events are collated, facilitating the work of reliability specialists in establishing a Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This makes it even easier to compare inspection data to determine deterioration.

Investment Planification

CMMS/EAM

Depending on the organization's strategic planning and maintenance budget, CMMS/EAM can provide excellent indicators for forecasting personnel, consumables, and downtime costs. The best implemented CMMS/EAMs feature a replacement cost structure by component, which facilitates the projection of operating costs in procurement for future maintenance.

STELAR

The tool categorizes asset condition according to the organization's risk matrix. As a result, investment priorities for mitigating risk, repairing deficient components, or replacing an asset are predetermined according to the organization's parameters. By compiling detailed information on asset integrity and reliability in addition to replacement value, Stelar facilitates informed, rapid, and well-documented decisions on strategic issues. It provides an investment planning tool that facilitates the strategic planning structure of asset management.

KPI Communications

CMMS/EAM

A CMMS/EAM dashboard provides a clear view of the status of maintenance operations. Typically, a dashboard shows which purchase orders have been completed and which remain to be done, which equipment is down, what the next steps are, how the maintenance budget is being monitored, and so on. This overview enables coordination with operations.

STELAR

The data accessible on Stelar's dashboard is highly scalable to inform all levels of decision-making. It is made up of several layers of information, ranging from macro to micro views. We find the dollars to be invested according to risk, the ESG balance of assets, the list of urgent interventions, the residual life of assets, the asset health index, the investments required to reduce risk, etc. This information will feed into the decisions to be made in the future. This information can be used by maintenance, operations, engineering projects and senior management teams to make informed decisions.

Interconnexion and Interoperability

To achieve or maintain an elevated level of maturity, and thus support best practices in asset management, CMMS/EAM must necessarily be paired with an APM+ like Stelar. To achieve this, it is essential to carry out an interconnectivity and interoperability study to determine what information needs to be transferred from one system to the other, based on business processes. This will avoid duplication of information and optimize the value of both.

In addition, maintenance managers, operations managers and senior management need centralized, structured data for analysis. So, it is vital to build a centralized infrastructure to house all relevant asset information, especially as Stelar can connect with different data sources (in and out). This will provide the organization with clear information, generating insights crucial to decision-making.

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