Augmented reality: an asset in physical asset management

Miguel Salgueiro, Founder Partner of NextBITT, spoke toExecutive Digestabout physical asset management, its importance for organizations and the solutions available on the market.

- What is physical asset management and how important is it for organizations?

In the first instance, physical asset management makes it possible to have a permanently updated register, with the aim of managing its useful life cycle, allowing organizations to have an integrated view of it, acting whenever possible on the basis of alarm data generated by different types of sensors.

Our team has been working on a number of projects aimed at controlling our clients' equipment and facilities, whether they are geographically dispersed or gathered in the same facility. In this sense, our solution takes advantage of the latest technologies such as NFC or geo-referencing to guarantee complete traceability of an organization's physical assets throughout their life cycle. Both in terms of cost control and the operational aspect of the availability and operation of each piece of equipment.

Our projects are characterized by ensuring simple and effective integration of the NextBITT platform with the rest of the client's technological ecosystem, whether with ERP's, centralized building management systems or SCADA systems in a manufacturing environment.

On the other hand, by adopting NextBITT technology, our clients will have an integrated view of all the interventions on all their assets, spread across national and international territory. In this type of project, our platform manages all periodic inspections, certifications, infrastructure repairs and modifications, etc. On the other hand, it is through our platform that communication is carried out between the various service providers (maintenance, cleaning, catering, courier, removals, etc.) in terms of assigning jobs, managing associated documents, cost control, service catalogs, etc. both in central buildings and throughout the entire store network.

- Which sectors deserve special attention when it comes to managing physical assets?

In fact, over the years NextBITT has been able to reach the leaders of different industries, from telcos to healthcare, from retail and rail to banking. There is no specific sector, what is happening is that organizations with a large park of dispersed physical assets, or buildings that bring together in a single installation great complexity, for example, hundreds of employees, with thousands of different requests, with the most different machines to support the installation that require continuous and careful assistance, it has become vital for organizations to adopt NextBITT technology to support all events effectively and at a controlled cost.

- What solutions can be implemented?

NextBITT technology is unique, focused on Asset & Facility Managent, IoT, Field Service & Sustanability!

Today, from permanent inventory to the registration of all physical assets on a single platform, which at the same time integrates and monitors all types of equipment orders or alarms, NextBITT has become a benchmark.

This ensures integrated management of physical assets, from the infrastructure itself to clinical equipment, IT assets, purchasing and stock management, maintenance and Facility Services (Hard & Soft Services) based on a workflow of activities that guarantees automatic notification of the various players whenever their action is required, or just from an informational perspective so that all tasks related to the operation are known to the various levels of the internal structure, as well as the main service providers.

In addition, NextBITT technology, based on document management, offers the audit module, which guarantees the recording of quality, environmental and compliance audits, etc. (EX: audits of cleaning, maintenance, security and other providers, audits of compliance with certification requirements, audits of compliance with legal requirements, etc.)

We work with a philosophy of "agility", using the latest and best international practices in our projects. Our focus is always to be at the forefront, seeking to lead with innovation and quality of service. Our vision lies in the integration of the physical asset management ecosystem, through different software and even different hardware, so that in their day-to-day work, managers only have to consult the NextBITT mobile app and act!

Our solutions bring added value every day to companies operating in markets such as Facility Management, Industrial Maintenance, Fleet Management, Waste management, Telecommunications and many others. All control and information collection is guaranteed by an intuitive mobile app that ensures efficient collection of all information directly from the person responsible for carrying out the work.

On the other hand, in recent times and by way of example, NextBITT has already been requested even at the building design stage, for integration with BIM - Building Information Modeling, i.e. the digitalization of physical asset management has become more prominent since the "design and projection of the building", as well as in the identification of different types of sensing.

The flexibility and agility of NextBITT's technology has always been designed from the outset to be permanently transversal to our clients' non-core areas. It's worth noting that the same technology that "manages" the preventive maintenance of a large hospital or a bank's head office is the same technology that also monitors energy consumption, catering, gardening, cleaning or a catering order! At the end of the day, we help our clients manage all their SLAs - Service Level Agreements - in an integrated way.

- How important is predictive maintenance for companies?

Predictive maintenance represents the most advanced stage of evolution in maintenance management. It is based on the assumption that an asset should only be intervened on when necessary, based on continuous monitoring of its condition. Technologies associated with IoT ("internet of things") and AI ("Artificial intelligence") have significantly streamlined and simplified the implementation of this methodology in all sectors of economic activity.

Adopting this methodology has been proven to increase the availability of assets, significantly improving the productivity of the processes that need them, while at the same time reducing operating costs since interventions and consequent replacements of parts and consumables are only carried out when justified and not on a scheduled basis, as is the case with systematic preventive maintenance. In this sense, companies typically benefit from more asset uptime at a lower operating cost.

- What role can the cloud play in managing physical assets?

Greater data centralization - Using Clould solutions eliminates the need for more than one server or digital location to store confidential and important information related to asset management. Clould can also be of great help in creating more accurate inventories and records in order to optimize data storage.

Greater scalability - Clould allows an organization to be much more flexible in scaling up or down according to the amount of asset data being managed at any given time. With Clould, scalability is one of the inherent strengths of asset management companies.

Accessibility and versatility - The use of Clould not only aims to store information centrally, but also allows authorized people to access information from anywhere at any time. This can greatly improve the organization's overall processes and generally allows it to respond more quickly to problems.

Using Clould for asset management offers a multitude of advantages that can greatly improve all aspects of the organization's business model and strategy.

- And augmented reality, can it add value?

Yes, I believe that augmented reality will be used frequently in the very short term, whether in service buildings that can benefit from BIM models that make it possible to identify equipment and infrastructure hidden by false ceilings or walls, or systems that make it possible to view the operational parameters of assets in real time, such as temperatures, humidity, history of interventions or any other information that may be relevant to a technician approaching an asset.

Source: Executive Digest

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