The Ultimate Guide to Asset Performance Management: How to optimize performance and ensure business success

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, organizations face the challenge of maintaining assets effectively while maximizing performance and minimizing costs. The traditional reactive maintenance approach, where assets are used until they break and then repaired, is no longer a viable strategy. To address this issue, organizations need to shift their focus to asset performance management. 

In this guide, we will explore the concept of asset performance management, its benefits, and how BaxEnergy can help energy organizations achieve operational excellence. 

Summary: 

1. What is Asset Performance Management?
2. The benefits of Asset Performance Management for energy companies
3. How can BaxEnergy help your company optimize asset performance?
   
   

1. What is Asset Performance Management?

Asset performance management (APM) is a comprehensive approach that encompasses data capture, integration, visualization, and analytics to improve the reliability and availability of physical assets. It includes various concepts such as condition monitoring, predictive forecasting, and reliability-centered maintenance (RCM).  

The goal of APM is to enhance the performance of each asset, make them more reliable, and reduce the risk of asset failure. Additionally, APM provides a complete view of asset health, performance, and quality, enabling organizations to make informed decisions. 

2. The benefits of Asset Performance Management for energy companies

Implementing asset performance management can yield significant benefits across different industries, including the energy sector.  

In the context of renewable energy asset management, let’s consider the example of a utility company that manages a portfolio of wind turbines. They aim to implement an asset performance management (APM) system to optimize the reliability and performance of their assets. 

The utility company starts by deploying sensors on each wind turbine to capture real-time data on parameters such as wind speed, turbine rotation, temperature, and vibration. This data is then integrated into a centralized system, which combines data from all turbines and allows for comprehensive analysis. 

Using advanced analytics and predictive forecasting algorithms, the APM system continuously monitors the condition of each turbine. It identifies potential issues before they escalate into serious problems, such as detecting abnormal vibrations or temperature variations that could indicate an impending breakdown. 

Based on the insights provided by the APM system, the utility company can schedule maintenance proactively, adopting a reliability-centered maintenance approach. They can prioritize maintenance tasks based on the actual condition and predicted performance of each asset, thereby optimizing resource allocation and minimizing downtime. 

Moreover, the APM system can provide visual dashboards that display the health, performance, and quality of the wind turbines in real-time. This enables the utility company to make informed decisions regarding asset management. They can identify trends, analyze patterns, and assess the overall reliability of their wind turbine fleet. 
 
Summing up, these are the key advantages of using an Asset Performance Management (APM) system: 

1. Optimized asset performance: The primary objective of asset performance management is to ensure that assets operate at their best and minimize the occurrence of breakdowns. Calibration management is also a vital aspect of APM, ensuring that assets are functioning within the desired specifications. Comprehensive maintenance records and historical data are leveraged to support asset optimization efforts. 
    
2. Extended asset life: Efficient asset performance management considers the entire lifecycle of an asset, from procurement to disposal. It helps organizations improve the productive life of assets at every stage. By maintaining and managing assets effectively, organizations can enhance their longevity and efficiency. Asset management also enables organizations to identify assets that are no longer adding value or are underperforming, allowing for timely disposal before any asset failure occurs. 
    
3. Cost savings on maintenance expenses: Ineffective asset management not only results in unnecessary maintenance costs but also reduces the lifespan of assets. During the operational phase of an asset’s lifecycle, organizations can encounter various maintenance issues. These issues can hinder business growth and development. Asset performance management addresses these challenges by centralizing data and information on all assets, scheduling maintenance activities, and providing timely notifications and alerts. This proactive approach helps identify inefficient assets, leading to cost savings and improved business development. 
    
4. Enhanced employee safety: Timely maintenance work increases the safety and optimization of assets while reducing the risk of breakdowns. Identifying potential issues early can help organizations to save significant costs, as it is more economical to replace a few parts of a machine rather than replacing the entire unit. Moreover, a safer environment leads to increased employee satisfaction and well-being. 
    
5. Actionable maintenance reports and statistics: Asset performance reports play a crucial role in collecting valuable insights for effective ass et management. These reports provide valuable information when it comes to determining the maintenance needs of assets and deciding when it is time to dispose of them. Analytics data can be quickly retrieved from these reports, allowing organizations to assess the performance of each asset. By leveraging asset management reports, organizations can identify potential issues and plan for future maintenance accordingly. 

3. How can BaxEnergy help your company optimize asset performance?

BaxEnergy is an Italian software house with 10+ years of expertise in the renewable energy management industry and asset performance solutions. We deliver innovative turnkey solutions to visualize, analyze and optimize power plants’ data and operations across multiple technologies and manufacturers.  

Our Asset Performance Management platform monitors and controls over 50.000 generation units in more than 20 countries, ensuring that everything is always running at optimal performance, avoiding costly downtime and reducing O&M efforts.

 
With BaxEnergy’s solutions you can: 

• Be independent, extending OEM capabilities with customized alarms and reports 
• Store all your company’s data in one place, improving the decision-making process 
• Master maintenance scheduling, reducing by 70% O&M costs 
• Improve Health & Safety procedures, keeping track of all the documentation needed 
• Save time and money, making your business processes more efficient and increasing your ROI 
   

Our platform stands out from competition thanks to its adaptable and flexible capabilities which allow us to connect to every kind of renewable asset, regardless of the technology (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, combined-cycle, hydrogen, battery storage) or manufacturer. 

Through our advanced APIs, you will get full access to your data, and you will be able to keep a digital eye on any asset of your portfolio! 

 
To find out more on how our clients implemented our solutions in their operations, we encourage you to read our Success Stories in the Resources section. Below you can find some examples: 
 

• The case of Austrian customers: why 95% of them uses Energy Studio Pro® and AssetStack®? 
• Swisspower Renewables AG keeps optimizing processes thanks to AssetStack® 
• AssetStack® enables the digital transformation of maintenance workflows 

4. Conclusion

Digital technology and digitalization play a crucial role in facilitating the shift towards clean energy. Their capacity for transformation is immense. However, for companies in the energy industry to fully harness this potential, they must prioritize digitalization as an essential aspect of their business operations.

In this scenario, optimizing asset performance is essential for business expansion and cost reduction without compromising on organizational needs. Implementing asset performance management enables utilities, IPPs and asset owners to achieve operational excellence, positively impacting key performance indicators (KPIs) tracked by the maintenance team.

Shifting from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance is crucial, as small issues left unattended can escalate into significant problems over time.

Energy companies can leverage BaxEnergy’s renewable asset management software to streamline their performance optimization efforts and minimize asset failure risks. 

Contact our team of experts to discover more and get a free live demo!