Achieving Next-Gen Enterprise Asset Management with Integrated Digital Twins Technology

Keywords: Asset Management, Asset Performance Management (APM), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), Digital Twins, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Overview

As forward-looking organizations move forward on their digital transformation (DT) journey, they are looking to modernize and digitize their asset performance management (APM) practices. Organizations are realizing the importance of implementing a modern enterprise asset management (EAM) solution in achieving success with their APM initiatives. 

Modern EAM systems integrated with other advanced digital technologies of today can enhance the value proposition of APM by several folds. Recently, HubHead Corp. briefed ARC on its NRX Digital Twin solution and highlighted how by integrating the solution with EAM systems, it enhances EAM capabilities and simplifies asset management for users. 

Starting Transformation at the Core with EAM

EAM solutions help with several asset management functions including work order management, parts planning, inventory management, and so on. When an asset needs maintenance, technicians typically create a work order on the EAM system. When any replacement part is needed to fix the equipment, technicians need to look up the parts book to find part numbers, SKUs, and other related information. Many organizations have digital copies of these part books, which makes the task a bit easier. However, many organizations do not have these saved systematically or at one place, this complicates the process for technicians.  

Advanced end users often have their EAM systems integrated with ERP systems. With the right integration, technicians are able to see within the EAM system, part numbers and SKUs from the ERP system. However, with complicated equipment assemblies and hundreds of parts in the ERP system, this can be a daunting task as well. Furthermore, if the worker is unable to find the right part, this can result in longer downtime periods. HubHead’s new NRX Digital Twins solution tackles this specific challenge by simplifying parts identification process with digital twin technology. 

Digital Twin Technology

A digital twin is usually defined as a virtual representation of a physical asset or system. The term digital twin is also used to define technology that simulates the behavior of an asset or process, and update in real time to reflect changes. This technology continues to be leveraged in a range of different applications. 

At the most basic level, digital twin technology can help us learn and understand data or asset information better by helping us visualize that data in the form of an image or other virtual representation. This is because we humans are visual learners. According to Richard Felder's famous research, about 65 percent of adults prefer to gather information by looking at pictures, diagrams, graphs, and charts. Furthermore, the brain can process images and videos 60,000 times faster than text. HubHead has successfully leveraged this benefit of the digital twin technology to streamline parts planning and simplify  equipment maintenance for users. 

NRX Digital Twin Simplifies Parts Planning

Modern end users are looking to digitize their key documents including maintenance manuals, engineering documents, and parts catalog. NRX Digital Twin offers an easy to use tool where all the asset related manuals and parts information can be stored. In addition, all the asset and parts information can be directly associated with the right assets in the NRX AssetHub solution.

NRX Digital Twin’s seamless integration with user’s EAM or CMMS system ensures that when a worker creates a work order in the EAM or CMMS system, they can easily access the digital twin parts catalog within the same system. Digital drawings of the assets with all part names labelled along with hotpoints makes all parts information easily accessible to workers. When workers click on the part name hotpoint link in the digital drawing, correct part in the parts list is highlighted to easily show the worker, right part number and SKU. Workers then easily add this information to the work order. 

Integration with ERP systems further simplifies parts management for workers. When integrated with ERP systems, workers can directly get linked to the ERP system to check for available parts in inventory as well. 

Creating Accurate Bills of Materials

In asset-intensive industries, maintenance staff usually maintain big inventory of several critical spare parts to expedite maintenance work. With parts and asset information saved in multiple systems, maintenance teams often struggle to keep an accurate inventory log. They often have missing parts or duplicates. With NRX Digital Twins, having a single repository of all parts information helps maintenance teams keep an accurate view and count of the inventory items. 

NRX Digital Twin also helps maintenance teams quickly create accurate bills of materials (BOMs) from the vendor-recommended spare parts list in the easy to view NRX Digital Twin tool. Maintenance personnel  can easily locate the needed part in the digital diagram and follow the link to find the needed SKU and match it to the recommended part in the inventory and add the SKUs to a BOM. This helps expedite the BOM creation process and improves accuracies.

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is not a new technology for the industrial world, it is already being leveraged by industrial manufacturers for various different applications. Progressive solution providers such as HubHead are also adopting the technology to create advanced solutions for users. HubHead shared with ARC their own AI journey. The company has successfully leveraged the technology to build the NRX Digital Twin solution. The company’s AI based proprietary tool can easily scan digital copies of the parts books and parse out key information, call out part names, create hotpoints, and logically link to correct parts in the system. 

While most industry providers concentrate on delivering standard off-the-shelf solutions, HubHead is dedicated to understanding end user requirements and focusing on offering comprehensive end-to-end services for their digital twin solution. The company works closely with the end users to digitize and integrate all the needed parts books into the NRX AssetHub solutions. Services such as these help end users accelerate their digital transformation efforts. 

Conclusion

Effective EAM is a key component of an organization’s asset management strategy. Modern EAM solutions that leverage newer technologies offer opportunities for business process transformation that benefits end users. Based on ARC research and analysis, we recommend the following actions for end users.

For implementing a truly modern EAM system, end users should focus on having a solution that is open and can be easily integrated with other systems. This can greatly enhance the value proposition of their asset management initiatives.

Although the capabilities of EAM solutions continue to expand, different customers are looking for different features. Advanced technology providers such as HubHead continue to innovate and offer add-on capabilities that can help simplify asset management tasks. End users should carefully review newer technologies and add-on capabilities to help them with their APM challenges. End users should make sure these fit with their existing technology stack as well as maintenance and operations processes. 

Digital twins for assets offer end users a means to optimize their maintenance process. End users looking to streamline their parts planning process should consider solutions such as NRX Digital Twin. For end users who are new to their digital journey, adopting advanced technology can be challenging. For such users working with solution providers such as HubHead, who can help them at various steps through their comprehensive services, can prove to be extremely beneficial. End users should strive to establish close partnerships with their solution providers to ensure they get the necessary support to accelerate their digital transformation efforts.

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