Report underscores criticality of proper maintenance

Nearly all (87 percent) of asset owner/operators in asset-intensive industries agree that proper maintenance of their production assets is crucial to their organizations' overall financial success, according to the newly published Aberdeen Group benchmark report, Collaborate Asset Maintenance Strategies.

The benchmark report further reveals that leading companies have achieved differentiated performance in key performance metrics, including: a larger return on invested capital, greater asset productivity, improved asset uptime and lower maintenance costs.

"We found proactive maintenance processes that augment regularly scheduled preventive maintenance routines tend to boost organizations into the best-in- class category. Corollary data strongly supports that best-in-class organizations operate in a ‘break-fix’ mode far less often than do their laggard counterparts," said Michael Israel, research director, Service Chain Research at Aberdeen and author of the report.

Israel offers manufacturers and service providers specific recommendations for asset maintenance improvement, which include the following:

• Implement aggressive proactive maintenance strategies.
• Use analytics software to measure actual asset performance against established goals.
• Centralize management and control of asset maintenance.
• Build a case for the chief financial officer regarding the importance of investing to support proper service and maintenance practices.
• Consider spare parts/MRO inventory planning solutions.

The "Collaborative Asset Maintenance Strategies" benchmark report examines how leading organizations in asset-intensive industries are excelling in maintenance practices and differentiating themselves from the rest of the pack in areas such as process definition, organizational alignment, data management, technology integration and performance management.

More than 300 companies participated in the quantitative study, including Coors Brewing, DuPont, Georgia-Pacific, Hamilton Sundstrand, Hormel Foods, Nova Chemicals, Kimberly Clark, Transalta, Yum Brands and others.

For a free copy of the full findings, click on the following link: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=3711.

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.