Asset management in the utilities sector is not a new concept. Whether it’s management and maintenance of assets such as electrical grids, gas pipelines, substations, dams or distribution lines, they each have to be monitored, maintained and repaired to ensure uninterrupted service. Services such as access to water, oil and electricity are vital amenities and if something goes wrong, it can have a significant impact. Utilities organisations are faced with the growing challenge of monitoring the status of assets safely and efficiently, which is a huge task but is required in order to meet increasing regulations, and rising customer expectations as well as reducing costs and increasing efficiencies.
Without real time information, monitoring every asset can become extremely time consuming which can result in disruptions to service delivery. However, with today’s revolution in technology, monitoring assets provides valuable data to utilities organisations, enabling asset management to evolve to meet the complex needs of the industry.
What is asset management and what value does it provide the Utilities sector?
Asset management is a systematic process of developing, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets in the most cost-effective manner. Within the utilities sector, asset management can be mission critical such as monitoring electricity or water outages for example. Without visibility of assets and their performance, field staff can only be reactive to issues as they arise, causing expensive operational costs and interrupted service delivery. By implementing technology such as field service management and IoT, utilities organisations can become proactive in monitoring failing assets, ensuring field staff are deployed to repair them on time which in turn increases capacity and reduces costs. Furthermore, the real time data that is collected from assets and sensors enables utilities organisations to review and track asset performance, monitor key trends, reduce maintenance tasks and overall costs.
Asset management allows organisations to monitor aspects such as the speed and failure of equipment, the condition of equipment, usage, maintenance and repair history and the overall asset life cycle. With access to more asset data, utilities organisations can make efficient decisions throughout their operations and reduce equipment downtime and maintenance costs.
By continuously measuring and tracking the status of assets, field staff can easily evidence work completed in real time. This increased awareness leads to better decisions and a higher quality of service being delivered to utilities customers.
Totalmobile in the Utilities Sector
Totalmobile’s technology is fully configurable and suitable across large utilities and infrastructure organisations, providing you with the flexibility to easily manage assets and provide invaluable real time data. Our solutions ensure services are delivered smarter and safer while maintaining standards and improving the overall customer experience. For further information on Totalmobile’s services within the Utilities sector, visit our website pages below or download our overview brochure here.