Working remotely is a new way of working these days, many western countries are following this for years successfully managing their business. Watching the success rate of remote working many countries like India has also started to follow the trend.
According to sources, even before COVID-19 strike the world, in the U.S. there were 7 million people already working in a remote style, which is 3.4% of their population. For the past five years, the remote style of working has only increased that too with 44%.
But this pandemic has forced everyone to work from home or remotely. People are managing the whole system with remote working, working late (comfortable working), maintaining the equipment provided to the employees, and on the sites as well.
Remote monitoring of IT assets is equally important for a company as it is to get the business. Asset maintenance has not been an easy task from always, it needs proper planning, strategies, implementation, execution, trustworthy employees and technicians, tools and technology, and great software to handle all the data at a centralized place.
Asset maintenance management is a process with an improved strategy that will increase safety, reliability, and long-running of assets involved with every system or facility.
Remote maintenance solves various problems for a business just on your fingertips with a close eye on your asset’s operational status and recovery. Through remote maintenance saves you from costly expenditure on problems and their solutions and also allows you employees to concentrate on the projects more efficiently without any disturbance.
There will be no downtime in the network faced by the employees while chasing their assigned duties. It will also control access to important files and documents with limited credentials. As on the site working the network downtime can cause worst scenarios with delayed projects to submit, which may arise a doubt on your employees’ capability as well.
Remote maintenance takes care of routine maintenance activities, resolve issues within time, no impact left on other work, that too effortlessly. It will never fail you down, until or unless the wrong data and information put on the system. Conditions of an asset to be checked before planning to maintain an IT asset:
- Identification of Asset
- Asset Condition
- Asset Manufacturing Model
- Asset Maintenance Program
- Estimate Operational Costs
There are many organizations that have distributed their assets to different working sites such as broadband and network, railways, elevators or escalators, etc. for them it gets difficult to manage assets at different locations. But with a good asset management solution, everything is easily managed. The software application always asks the location of your assets when you add the data at the beginning of the software implementation. The stored data will let the details of the assets and the tools and solution required on the basis or earlier solved queries of the same asset.
There are many issues that arise with respect to asset maintenance, such as:
- Unsatisfactory maintenance frequencies because of condition-based maintenance strategy
- Limited asset information such as asset condition, costing, utilization status, etc.
- Unoptimized safety measures for the technicians
- Lack of knowledge of asset performance
There are many factors that you should consider before choosing any maintenance policy for asset maintenance management, such as:
- Involved failure risks
- Maintenance costs
- Asset performance
- Asset reliability
Importance of Remote Maintenance Management
- All Safety Measures
Remote maintenance provides optimum maintenance activities under safe conditions for both the asset or equipment and technician. The issue will be resolved before it turns to some major accident.
- Machine Efficiency
Lower efficiency can be caused in the equipment due to normal wear and tear. The preventive maintenance will ensure the optimum working conditions of the equipment and take care of routine schedule which at the end increases the life span of the equipment.
- Time-Saving
Well-planned maintenance management reduces the downtime in production caused by the breakdown. This increases productivity, production time which saves a lot of time. Preventative maintenance takes care of the scheduled routine checks and maintenance activities that eventually take less time in emergency repairs and replacements.
Types of Maintenance Techniques to apply for Remote Maintenance of IT assets and their Advantages
- Breakdown Maintenance
In breakdown maintenance, assets are utilized until they break or stops working. Whenever a breakdown occurs, maintenance is done in reactive to fix the problem in equipment and its resolving to get back to activity again. Use of this maintenance technique is alright if the asset doesn’t essentially influence productivity or daily tasks or operations.
Advantages:
- No required planning
- Doesn’t affect the productivity
- Simple to implement process
- Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is known for planned and proactive maintenance because of its nature. As it allows the organization to schedule the maintenance activities in advance. Use of this method is very popular and is practiced for various maintenance activities in the field. The objective of preventive maintenance is to prevent the potential problem.
Advantages:
- Fewer maintenance expenses
- Less Downtime
- Increased productivity
- Better conservation of assets
- Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance is the simplest method to carry out with CMMS (computerized maintenance management system). As the software is capable to keep track of both the assets and their maintenance history.
Advantages:
- Early detection of the potential problem
- Decreased Downtime
- Complete utilization of machine parts
- Minimized cost
- Condition-based Maintenance
Condition-based maintenance is implemented to record and resolve decreased performance by calculating the risk involved. It can be applied to all types ofassets. In the method of maintenance, it is the only scheduled when the equipment needs maintenance and also, last maintenance dos do not affect any of the issue and its solution.
Advantages:
- Increased operational time
- Increased life cycle of asset
- Very low chances of sudden asset failure
- Lower maintenance expenses
Conclusion:
Cloud-based asset management software helps you with remote asset tracking as well as remote monitoring and management of your assets and allows you to can create service reminders based on hour intervals to ensure preventive maintenance tasks to be on time.
Tasks of maintenance schedulingmaximizes the equipment uptime that helps you avoid unnecessary repair costs in the long run. This is a widespread time of uncertainty and fears so keep up your routine operations and prevent your asset downtime, to help encourage your team and thing will eventually come to normal.