Asset performance management (APM) is an asset management framework that is to reduce unplanned downtime, decrease overall maintenance costs, as well as reduce environmental, health and safety risks. APM considers business goals and how best to use physical assets to meet or exceed them. In businesses which require extensive equipment for operations such as oil and gas, manufacturing, and utilities, APM enables higher reliability at lowered costs.
Preventing asset failure and reducing operating costs is possible with robust data management and industry appropriate asset performance management software. Asset performance management software is designed for the management of enterprise assets. When used for Information Technology (IT), APM will proactively monitor applications to identify issues early so they can be mitigated before they impact overall performance. Asset performance management initiatives commonly use big data analytics and artificial intelligence to lessen asset failure and reduce operation cost. Asset data is collected (typically through sensors) and analyzed using pattern recognition, predictive analytics, and machine learning.
Asset performance management is part of the Industry 4.0 approach to enterprise asset maintenance and optimization. Industry 4.0 is driven by digital transformation that includes asset performance management. APM helps improve production processes and systems to enable consistent asset operations that leverage a suite of Industry 4.0 technologies.