Energy and utilities providers seek to be well-prepared for a wide range of emergency situations, and position themselves to maintain critical infrastructure during natural disasters, power outages, cyber attacks and more. And while the industry is no stranger to health crises either, the restrictions surrounding COVID-19 proved many times over the value of remote asset monitoring and enterprise asset management.
The benefits of such a system have always been clear, and now as businesses look toward a return to normalcy, their capabilities are more essential than ever.
Enterprise asset management for energy and utilities
Enterprise asset management in the energy sector requires a strategic approach. "Many utilities invest in asset management systems without getting the required input data," reported Energy Tech Review. "To ensure optimum performance and total ROI, a quality information system approach is necessary for the utility asset management system."
Utilities require dozens, if not hundreds of management tools to monitor the health, status and location of thousands of individual assets. While no single system can offer total oversight, solutions that provide condition based monitoring and sensors and tracking for critical assets can deliver the insight utilities need for business continuity.
The need for remote asset monitoring solutions
Adding remote asset monitoring solutions to your enterprise asset management system is a digital transformation that adds value to the company and keeps you competitive. In a heavily regulated industry, these solutions could also help ensure you meet compliance requirements. The monitoring solutions also aid in decision-making processes throughout its ecosystem—for instance, allowing someone in the middle of the country to monitor weather conditions along the Gulf Coast.
Solutions are designed vertical-specific and should include process-tracking abilities, infrastructure workflows, data analytics and asset management.
Condition based monitoring
In an industry that can hardly afford downtime, the value of proactive maintenance can't be overstated. Using an IoT platform that transforms physical assets into software-based models, engineers and technicians can have access to near real-time asset monitoring to check asset condition, identify problems, send alerts and trigger predictive or automatic maintenance. By getting ahead of issues that threaten to interrupt services, utilities can save on costs and improve operational efficiency.
Asset sensors
Maintenance is just one of dozens of judgment calls utilities supervisors might have to make in a given day. For the others, they need solutions that provide thorough and near real-time analysis of asset performance. A multisensor IoT device can collect and analyze data from IoT-connected assets to improve automation, enable logistics optimization and support smart decision making. An IoT solution can be deployed in just a few hours rather than days, saving critical time for facilities that don't have any to waste.
Asset tracking solutions
An asset tracking solution can add another layer of oversight to connected assets, providing location updates, status alerts, data collection and crucial environmental monitoring. In combination with asset sensors and LTE or 5G connectivity, asset tracking solutions can help improve business efficiency, reduce waste and prevent lost or damaged resources.
What you need to implement asset monitoring and tracking
The technology most often used in asset monitoring solutions is the Internet of Things (IoT). Through the use of sensors combined with enterprise asset management software, energy companies can track each asset individually or as a group. Sensors are attached to each piece of equipment, with locations data determined and transmitted by a cellular network.
Assets are critical to all industries, but the energy vertical in particular relies on vast physical assets that are spread out and difficult to track. Enterprise asset management solutions and remote monitoring can be cost-saving and company-saving solutions for asset-heavy industries.
Learn more about Verizon energy and utilities management solutions.