Companies need to look at their traditional ways of assessing individual asset efficiency. It is no longer good enough to look at the ordinary determinants, without integrating energy performance. An innovative approach to asset management has emerged which is known as “global asset sustainability.” We are now able to get a much clearer definition of efficiency if we adopt this system, driving improved financial metrics throughout the organization.

Driving a new approach toward global asset sustainability is the ever-growing price of energy and its associated security issues. Energy prices are on a relentless rise and availability is far from assured. Companies realize that this position is significantly affecting their profit margins and unless action is taken, will threaten their very business viability. Along with energy worries is a dual concern — the environmental impact of consuming energy and producing greenhouse gas emissions.

Every element of operation within the business must be leveraged and inefficiencies uncovered. Asset management may no longer be viewed from a point of conventional efficiency alone. The traditional approach would classify and justify asset performance just based on its productivity against specification. This did not take into account the amount of energy that the asset was using and this invisibility was causing a significant draw and reallocation of budgets from elsewhere.

Global asset sustainability takes a clear look at energy consumption, alongside the traditional metrics of availability, condition and performance. It’s not surprising, as the Department of Energy can tell us that the typical commercial or industrial company in the country now allocates over 80% of a non-labor operating and maintenance budget toward energy, alongside maintenance.

A new look at managing assets incorporates a four pronged approach. Global asset sustainability was not all-encompassing in this regard, before. As an example, we would determine asset availability as being acceptable if the equipment returned maximum uptime and generated revenues acceptably. We would also look at performance by considering the equipment specification and determining whether we were getting a good return on investment.

Performance is a base metric, of course and asset output quality is the indicator that determines how thin margins turn out. Quality control can often make the difference between dominance in the marketplace or playing catchup.

Traditionally, organizations did not counter in the most important factor in global asset sustainability — energy consumption. When a baseline position is established for each asset, running under prime conditions, each asset can subsequently be evaluated on an ongoing and almost instantaneous basis to reveal ultimate efficiency. Even a slight variation in efficiency can account for a huge operating loss across the distributed enterprise.

Equipment effectiveness readings have to be modified to incorporate energy into the mix. This new look at global asset sustainability understands that it is “all about” energy and companies must be able to monitor and micromanage this resource.

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