Who Needs Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Anyway?

In order to understand who needs this type of system, the definition of “asset” is required. According to businessdictionary.com, an “asset” is defined as “something valuable that an entity owns, benefits from, or has use of, in generating income.” This means that people and know-how can also be considered assets, but EAM manages physical (or tangible) assets, such as vehicles, machinery, buildings, etc. There are exceptions when non-tangible assets are managed for industries such as IT or media.

Another thing worth mentioning is the value and the importance of the assets you intend to manage using EAM. If you have 50 computers, a few printers, and a fax machine, an EAM solution will not be very helpful. Of course, companies using vehicle fleets or heavy machinery will find it very useful.



There are business software vendors who specialize in EAM (Champs, Corrigo, etc.) but also ERP vendors that offer EAM functionality (Pronto, Lawson, Oracle, SAP, etc). You can find both categories in our Vendor Showcase and even compare them in our EAM Evaluation Center. Other vendors call EAM asset lifecycle management (ALM), and the difference between EAM and ALM is not very clear. To make the asset management landscape even more complicated, some software vendors offer solutions for specific industries like IT asset lifecycle management (ITALM), media asset lifecycle management, and healthcare EAM (HEAM).

Vendors like JDA, InfoTrak, and Jobscope offer maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) software for aircraft and fleet vehicles, which has very similar functionality to EAM. Finally, vendors like Thales combined EAM with product lifecycle management (PLM) software and the result is product and asset lifecycle management (PALM).

Project Management Communication: Developing a Plan (Part 2 Of 3)

The issues project managers (PMs) have to communicate about on a regular basis include

1. buy-in and acceptance of major project decisions and milestones
2. acquiring resources and managing budgets
3. providing status reports on project schedule and deliverables
4. providing classroom training and preparing user guides
5. negotiations with third-party software vendors
6. presentations to project sponsors and stakeholders
7. mapping current processes and validating their findings
8. development of process models and managing project documentation
9. kickoff meetings
10. executive reports
11. presentations
12. financial reports
13. issue logs
14. risk logs
15. change request logs
16. role-responsibility matrix
17. project organization chart

Given the nature of the communication models above, it is clear that listening is of equal importance to asking the correct questions and validating observations. Some of the challenges that project teams face can be attributed to the short-term nature of the projects themselves. These challenges may include working with individuals that the team has never worked with before, or working with individuals from other business units or from other geographic locations, where cultural differences can surface.

Tools and Techniques to Facilitate Communication

To overcome some of the challenges mentioned above, the following unique delivery methods and tools can be established in a short time frame.

1. Establishing a Project Managment Team Web Site

This is where all project-related documentation, including forms and templates, can reside and be accessed by project team members. The type of information to post on the web site includes team members’ names, title, photo, and if possible, a brief bio. Other items to include are the scope of the project, the charter work breakdown schedule (charter WBS), and the various phases of the project life cycle, including deliverables, milestones, and responsible parties. Project templates, an organizational change management plan, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and quality assurance (QA) documents and schedule should also be made available on the web site.

May a New Day Begin for Mature Enterprise Applications – Part 2

The “enrich” part of the strategy refers to adding value to Infor’s raft of current products (solutions or assets). Infor has released over 100 product upgrades and feature (service) packs free of charge for customers on active maintenance contracts. It is also important to note that there is no forced march imposed upon customers here; these feature packs can be enabled or disabled by turning the appropriate switches “on” or “off” in a parameterized setup.

The “extend” part of the strategy refers to extending functional footprint via OSGi standards–based interoperability within Infor’s portfolio of applications in order to meet the growing complexity of global supply chains. Customers will receive ongoing service-oriented architecture (SOA) integrations. On one hand, these product connections represent cross-selling opportunities for Infor, on the other hand, they should also enable customers to extend their current solutions and build a broader foundation for future capabilities that might be required.

For example, Infor’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) users will be able to leverage, e.g., Infor’s supply chain management (SCM), business performance management (BPM), or enterprise asset management (EAM) products. But in contrast to the “extend” feature packs (and new individual product releases), these new functional capabilities are logically available for an additional license fee.

Finally, the “evolve” part of Infor’s Open SOA strategy follows along the lines of developing brand new products that will solve some particular business problem and improve users’ competitiveness (and thus will not become obsolete for quite some time). These new components promise to feature universal interconnectivity to major Infor products.

Depending on their nature, they will either be free of charge (e.g., Infor MyDay) for eligible customers or for a commensurate license fee. For more details, see TEC’s previous article entitled “Ambitious Plans and Promises: An Enterprise Software Provider Keeps Its Word.”