Title: Relevant asset health information for executives

Authors: Melinda R. Hodkiewicz

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, University of Western Australia, M050, Nedlands, Perth 6009, Australia

Abstract: There is increasing interest in the development of asset health management systems for existing assets. However, the development of these systems is expensive and there are many questions about how to select which assets to monitor, what process to use, and how to support effective decision making for the business based on the outputs. This paper proposes an approach that explicitly targets executives early in the development of the asset health system and in the design of the visualisation interface. The process engages executives to define events they know impact the organisation's operation if the assets fail, identify what information they need to manage the risks to business disruption and how to display the information. A case study illustrates how this approach results in the requirement to display health information as a combination of mean residual life and potential for business disruption rather than traditional health indices. Spatial presentation of the data and choice of appropriate colours makes it easily accessible to the executive user.

Keywords: asset health information; asset management; risk management; prognostics; remaining useful life; information display; visualisation; executives; senior management; asset failure; mean residual life; business disruption.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEAM.2013.060471

International Journal of Strategic Engineering Asset Management, 2013 Vol.1 No.4, pp.425 - 438

Published online: 26 Jul 2014 *

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