superior software • exceptional service • cmms success

Understanding
Hierarchical Asset
Structures in CMMS
Gil Acosta
Director of Engineering Services
eMaint Enterprises

eMaint Best Practices Webinar • Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Meet the Presenter
Gil Acosta
Director of Engineering Services at eMaint
www.emaint.com/webinars
● Joined the eMaint team in June 2014, and has
substantial years of production, quality and
project management with Fortune 500
Companies.
● Trained and skilled in organizational
development, team leadership, change
management and lean manufacturing initiatives
● Extensive training with practical experience in
quality systems, industrial statistics, and group
dynamics
● BS Engineering from UT El Paso, MS Engineering
Management from UT Austin, and MA curriculum
in Behavioral Science through Bastyr University.

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

Agenda

I. What is a hierarchical asset structure?

II. Why is it important?
III. How do you begin?
IV. Q & A

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Poll Question #1

What motivated you to attend today’s webinar?

A. My current asset hierarchy is not serving me

B. I’m looking for ways to improve my asset hierarchy

C. We don’t have a CMMS and I want to learn more

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

What is a Hierarchical Asset Structure?
hi·er·ar·chy
ˈhī(ə)ˌrärkē/

noun
1. a system or organization in which people or groups
(ASSETS) are ranked one above the other according to
status or authority.

synonyms:
pecking order, order, ranking, chain of command, grading,
gradation, ladder, scale, range. "in the equipment hierarchy,
Tractor Vehicle is two levels above the carburetor system”

As it applies to our assets, hierarchy is simply the relationship between

the highest level of equipment and subordinate components. Often
times referred to as the Parent Child relationship.

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

What is a Hierarchical Asset Structure?
Establishing the parent-child relationship . . .
“Once developed, the asset hierarchy parent-child relationship allows the end-user to easily identify
which assets are maintainable assets and which assets are considered bill of material assets. ISO
14224 illustrates how a parent-child relationship appears in a pyramid taxonomy.”

Excerpt from Article By Paul Langan, Life Cycle Engineering as appeared in the October 2013 Edition of RxToday

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

What is a Hierarchical Asset Structure?
It’s not just about reporting structure . . .
“If the hierarchy is not accurate it is impossible to gain the reliability, maintainability and required
traceability of the assets. How can Planners do their job if they are not aware of the plant’s assets and
in particular how the assets relate to other assets?” Paul Langan

Lo
Site ca
Building tio
n
What about the electrical Room
panel, Location or Asset? As
Air Handling Unit se
t
AHU Pump
Pa
What about the refurbished Motor rts
motor, Asset or Part?
Electric Harness

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Why is Asset Hierarchy Important?
The foundation of any CMMS
initiative is to understand,
manage and improve the
performance of the
company's assets.

In order to deliver on this

premise, there must be an
underlying hierarchical
structure that governs those
assets.

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

Why is Asset Hierarchy Important?

With the right asset hierarchy,

an organization can endeavor
to improve asset performance
through such Reliability
Centered Maintenance (RCM)
activities as Failure Modes &
Effects Analysis (FMEA), and
Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

 Why is Asset Hierarchy Important?
Benefits of establishing a sound hierarchical asset structure:
1 Scheduling preventive & predictive maintenance activities

● A Planner is scheduling maintenance on a piece of equipment

● Therefore, all the assets associated with that equipment such as gear
boxes, instrumentation, safety valves, and isolation points are also
candidates for maintenance while the equipment is offline.

● This saves time, this saves money, and improves uptime because we
can shut down a group once to do scheduled maintenance versus
numerous shutdowns to do maintenance on individual assets.

How would you do this without a relationship hierarchy?

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

 Why is Asset Hierarchy Important?
Benefits of establishing a sound hierarchical asset structure:
2 The ability to charge costs to the lowest possible asset level

● This provides a means to identify where maintenance dollars are

actually being spent.
● Additionally, once the asset hierarchy relationship has been
established, Maintenance can write work orders to the correct asset
level and not to a general area.

● This helps develop historical data that can be used to calculate total
cost of ownership and contributes to “Repair or Replace” analysis.

How would you do this without a relationship hierarchy?

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

 Why is Asset Hierarchy Important?
Benefits of establishing a sound hierarchical asset structure:
3 Allows for Failure Mode & Effects Analysis (FMEA)
● FMEA is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a
design, a manufacturing process, an asset or service.
● “Failure Modes” means the ways, or modes, in which something might fail.
Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect asset
performance and can be potential or actual. (Work Order History)

● “Effects Analysis” refers to studying the consequences of those failures.

Failures are prioritized according to how serious their consequences are,
how frequently they occur and how easily they can be detected.
● The purpose of the FMEA is to take actions, think maintenance plan, to
eliminate or reduce failures.

How would you do this without a relationship hierarchy?

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

Why is Asset Hierarchy Important?

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

How Do you Begin an Asset Hierarchy?
Start with the end in mind - What would YOU want to know?

● What is the total cost of ownership for particular equipment?

● What is the MTBF for a particular equipment type?

● What is the MTTR of similar equipment but different manufacturers?

● What child component is creating the most unplanned downtime?

● What child components should be included in the next PM outage?

● What is the break even analysis for repairing or replacing?

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

How Do you Begin an Asset Hierarchy?
When establishing the asset hierarchy . . .
● Begin with a building diagram of your asset domain.
● The ISO/DIS 14224 Standard Taxonomy can be a useful guideline for
establishing the appropriate levels. However, do not stop there, companies can
customize the structure illustrated in the taxonomy to better manage their
unique requirements.
● It’s not just about the reporting relationship, It’s also about identifying similar
assets, assets from the same manufacturer, assets with similar power
consumption ratings, and the list goes on and on.

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

How Do you Begin an Asset Hierarchy?

● Asset Tag (MUST BE UNIQUE)

● Asset Name
● Parent Asset
Typical ● Parent Asset ID
● Asset Type
Asset ● Manufacturer
Hierarchy ●
●
Model Number
Serial Number
● Location
● Room / Level

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Assets
Asset Structure at a minimum must include the following:
● Parent Grouping
● Child Specific Assets
● Child Miscellaneous Asset – Only one per parent

INSERT PICTURE OF ASSETS IN EMAINT

THAT MEET THE MINIMUM CRITERIA

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

Summary
● Begin with the end in mind!
● Set up your specific asset hierarchy
● Monitor the asset performance
● Prioritize asset improvement areas
● Perform RCA / FMEA analysis

© 2015 eMaint Enterprises, LLC. Confidential & Proprietary.

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