Impact-Driven Asset Management^®

Impact-Driven Asset Management^® (IDAM), the key to operational excellence in asset-intensive enterprises.

Operational Excellence and the Operational Environment

In the highly-competitive modern-day business environment, asset-intensive enterprises depend on operational excellence to not only survive but thrive. In addition, investors and other stakeholders are calling on companies to have strategies in place for and disclose more information about their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

High degrees of operational integrity and resiliency are required to achieve and sustain operational excellence. One of the key elements in ensuring the overall operational integrity of an enterprise is asset integrity.

A focused and long-term approach, to both the company and specifically to ensuring the integrity of production-related assets, will strengthen the operational integrity of the enterprise.

Asset-Integrity Management Principles

To remain competitive in today’s markets, production equipment has to continuously meet exacting performance standards in a timely manner.

Firstly, effective asset-integrity management practices ensure that operational processes and systems, as well as human and technical resources, are in place (and in use) in order to deliver asset integrity. With these processes and resources functioning productively, equipment and operational processes will be capable of performing at the required standards as and when required.

Secondly, adherence to required performance standards needs to be maintained over the entire asset lifecycle. While meeting these demands, activities need to be executed with minimal interruption of operational processes.

Following from the above, an effective asset-integrity management function needs to fulfil its role continuously within a world of risks and uncertainties. On a higher level of risk management, risks can be looked at as being known or unknown. More granularly, Known Unknowns are risks of which a company is aware, while latent risks and/or those not considered are referred to as Unknown Unknowns.

When these risks turn into reality, they have a major impact on the performance and sustainability of the enterprise if not adequately addressed. Thus, the search, identification, and management of Unknown Unknowns are critical elements of effective asset-integrity management.

Lastly, to ensure that an enterprise stays competitive and financially sustainable, all maintenance and improvement work needs to be relevant and focused, executed at a high standard, and performed in a timely manner. Such factors as reliability, maintainability, availability, and workforce competency collectively play a major role in establishing an edge in a competitive environment.

IDAM: Applied Asset-Integrity Management

Applying IDAM, Radiant’s asset-management process, results in tangible value from the start. Performance improvements, asset-life extensions, and reduced production interruptions are some of the key benefits IDAM application delivers.

Crucially, IDAM provides a means of rapidly obtaining these benefits while accommodating the search and management of hidden and latent risks, i.e. the Unknown Unknowns.

IDAM has been developed to be applied in industrial and mining environments. Holistic and integrated, it supports assets as well as their underlying support systems and services.

Getting lost in a sea of detail or operating blind due to a lack of data or guidance, both jeopardise decision making and undermine efforts to ensure uptime. It is thus essential to keep track of the dynamics of an enterprise’s critical assets, while assessing the impact of these dynamics on operations and less critical equipment.

Related to tracking dynamics and day-to-day operations, the application of IDAM yields a set of focused business activities to be executed at strategic, tactical, or operational levels. Assets are deployed and operated reliably in a safe and environmentally-friendly environment. This allows the enterprise to function sustainably over the long term.

The Impact-Driven Asset Management^® (IDAM) model.

The layout of the model’s elements in the above diagram depicts the roles and relationships between key functionaries in an asset-intensive enterprise. Effective integration of these functionaries will enable an enterprise to respond and excel when facing operational and market challenges. From the start, applying the IDAM principles will enable an enterprise to fully benefit from the effective integration of the functionaries’ activities and processes.

Key functionaries of an asset-intensive enterprise:

Business & Strategy

The primary reason for the enterprise’s existence: creating revenue for the enterprise’s owners and investors. This requires effective and efficient operational, commercial, marketing, and other relevant functions to ensure profitability and competitiveness in the market.
Machines

The source of the products to be delivered: the operational assets. (Equipment and their asset-care requirements.)
Safety, Health, Environmental (SHE) & Social Sphere

The physical operational environment, along with its constrainst in which the enterprise has to operate.
People & Organization

The enablers of the enterprise’s processes.
Programs & Systems

The support service infrastructure (and nervous system) of an enterprise. Know-how and tribal knowledge are made tangible here.

Practicing IDAM in any operational environment allows for agile decision making. Equipment demands are analysed to yield a line-of-sight view of each asset’s role, and its specific maintenance and operational requirements. Critical success factors such as assets’ impact on processes, as well as which parameters to monitor and specific activities to be executed, are identified and highlighted by the analysis. These inputs are used as inputs to the prioritization process to produce a set of highly-focused asset care activities.

This is of particular importance when operating in complex operating environments, where the likelihood of critical failure caused by the combination of multiple incidents is very high. Crucially, putting the IDAM process into practice assists in exposing and addressing latent operational risks, i.e. the Unknown Unknowns mentioned before.

Employee retention and engagement play a material role in a successful operation. To this end, a highly-focused and dynamic working environment can be established by determining priority activities through the application of IDAM.

Daily maintenance and support tasks, service days, shutdowns/outages, and related activities based on IDAM principles are efficient, safe, and well coordinated. As a result, production process interruptions are minimized.

This dynamic prioritization and management process results in an effective, empowered workforce. IDAM drives personnel skill enhancement and capacity building, further enhancing enterprise sustainability.

IDAM also goes beyond day-to-day management and execution of asset-care activities. It serves as an effective platform for management of change (MOC). Asset integrity is kept intact throughout ongoing modification and improvement projects.

In the capital projects arena, IDAM functions as a launch pad for the successful establishment of new facilities or upgrades to existing facilities. Extended asset service lifetimes are realized by the selection of fit-for-purpose equipment, correct installation, and by having maintenance and support systems functional prior to facility start up.

Business and operational needs are screened and captured during the capital project’s conceptual phase. This guides the engineering design, procurement, construction and installation, and commissioning phases of the new facility for a glitch-free start up and sustainable operational life.

How Impact-Driven Asset Management^® Can Benefit Your Organization

Many production companies spend a great deal of their time firefighting. They continually suffer breakdowns and other incidents due to unreliable equipment. Over time, their facilities become unwieldy beasts due to low plant maintainability and insufficient maintenance practices.

Production is thus crippled by low and unstable plant availability. Their operational environment becomes a quagmire. A growing backlog of planned maintenance activities and other work to be done, spare parts shortages, and uncontrollable maintenance expenses are examples of major challenges such companies typically face.

For companies operating under such difficult conditions, IDAM offers the fastest path to stabilization and resolution of problem areas, doing so in a structured and focused manner. Incidents and performance fluctuations are dealt with promptly. Short-term disruptions are kept in check, while fostering a working environment that delivers lasting solutions.

Create a High-Performance Environment

Companies operating in a more stable fashion can effectively exploit opportunities out of reach of their quick-fixing competitors. These include: improving workforce skills and capacities, economical life extension of assets, and expanding current risk management strategies. IDAM provides an integrated platform for operational stability through focused execution of these essential tasks and activities in a timely and optimized manner.

In the realm of capital projects, execution and design decisions have major long-term impacts on the potential gains from a given investment. IDAM is key to turning these investments into profitable production facilities.

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