If you are planning to optimize the assets of your organization, asset lifecycle management (ALM) will help you to manage them holistically throughout their entire lifecycle.

What is Asset Lifecycle Management?

Asset lifecycle management (ALM) is a modern business process that maximizes the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of assets used within an organization throughout their lifecycle. This starts from the conceptual design stage through the regular usage to decommissioning and replacement of the asset.

It is crucial to implement ALM successfully if you want to derive the most out of your assets. This cradle-to-grave approach of asset management helps businesses identify inefficient processes in each stage of the cycle.

Why Is It Necessary to Manage Assets?

During the asset management process, the performance delivery of the assets is studied and observed at various stages, with the aim of optimizing their delivery value.

This also gives you a chance to look for opportunities such as balancing costs and threats against the performance to help you extract great returns from your investment while maintaining the objectives of the organization.

Any average mid-sized business has plenty of assets to deal with including IT hardware, company vehicles, software licenses, IP, among others. The costs associated with the purchase of these assets include monitoring ongoing ALM and maintaining complex asset registers.

Having access to tools or services that can assist you in the process will significantly make the process smoother. You could consider outsourcing your asset lifecycle management tasks to an expert that provides you accurate insights about the process, status of the assets, and deriving the best value from asset usage.

Stages of Asset Lifecycle Management

The different lifecycle stages include:

  • Acquiring/creating
  • Using
  • Maintaining
  • Renewing/disposing of the asset

Although these stages look quite simple on the surface, in practice it is a challenge to take a detailed look at all your assets.

Creation/Acquisition – The main and the first step in asset lifecycle management is the acquisition of assets. These can be blended to create a hybrid asset to suit the needs of the organization. Many mistakes occur at this stage which could affect other stages.

Utilization – Companies often group maintenance and utilization phases together in asset lifecycle management process. In practice, these are two separate stages, specifically when emergency maintenance needs to be done. If things proceed well in this stage, your assets will serve your business for a long time.

Maintenance – This step covers all the work that has to be done on the asset from the beginning till the end. It includes preventative, emergency, time-based, proactive, and other forms of maintenance. Maintenance and utilization stages need to work hand in hand to assure optimal success.

Disposal/Renewal – The last stage in an asset’s lifecycle is its disposal or renewal. All assets collect and provide sufficient company data over their lifecycles. This data must first be extracted and saved before the asset is disposed or renewed.

Challenges of Asset Lifecycle Management

As the business and technology environment changes, a company needs to revisit and update its asset lifecycle policy. New or different kinds of assets may need to be procured, forcing existing units to be decommissioned. External factors also influence asset lifecycle management such as availability of replacements, changes to legislations, and changes in process, among others.

Efficient Asset Lifecycle Management

For an efficient asset lifecycle management practice, it is best to employ an expert service provider that will thoroughly take into account all the factors about the costs and operations of any asset lifecycle. The provider’s solutions will offer you a detailed report for better visibility into your operations.

From these, you can derive conclusions and crucial insights within that asset lifecycle stage such as metrics that enable you to compare the various performances of an asset.

Boost Overall Productivity and Returns

From acquisition to decommissioning, the lifecycle of assets influences any business. When maintained properly, the assets offer a greater return on investment. If maintained poorly, these can negatively impact the resources of the company, the employees, and hinder the overall performance.

Choosing an expert to implement asset lifecycle management is immensely beneficial to boost productivity and return on investment. Contact us to learn how asset lifecycle management can help your business.