With the aging of countless social infrastructure facilities and equipment as well as production facilities and utilities in the manufacturing industry, it is becoming increasingly important to know their condition and to implement preventive maintenance to ensure stable operation and provide services without interruption.
To meet these needs, we have developed SmartFAM, a facilities and asset management system that can flexibly cope with various tasks related with maintenance.
This system enables centralized management and visualization of information related to your maintenance tasks, thus facilitating continuous improvement of tasks ranging from maintenance planning to performance management, analysis, evaluation, and review.
Fig.1 Maintenance management tasks
For successful facilities and asset management, business resources must be appropriately deployed and maintenance tasks carried out promptly. An EAM system or an O&M system is an effective way to achieve this. Such a system can be introduced smoothly by creating a facilities master and collecting maintenance data, then gradually growing the system.
SmartFAM allows you to easily create a system for streamlining facilities maintenance tasks that were previously managed by different business groups using software such as Excel®.
By using SmartFAM to create a facilities ledger and keep maintenance records for greater visibility, preventive maintenance can be achieved by collecting maintenance data, sharing information and performing the PDCA cycle, enabling smooth expansion to the EAM or the O&M system. A schematic diagram of system expansion is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig.2 Introduction and expansion of facilities management system
The SmartFAM system helps manage facilities and assets using Web browsers and mobile terminals. The functional configuration of this system is shown in Fig. 3.
The system is operated as follows:
In addition, a location control function for controlling the layout of facilities and inventory stores, as well as a workflow function and APIs for integration with other systems are also available.
Fig.3 Functional configuration of SmartFAM
The SmartFAM system flexibly adapts to a specific customer's business needs by externally defining data structures and screen layouts. This set of definitions of the customer's business needs is called a "template".
Templates allow you to flexibly define the relationships among databases and the managed items in the databases for the facilities ledger, maintenance tasks and inventory provided by the SmartFAM engine, which is the basis of the system. You can also display forms and screens for operating these databases and define the layouts of updated items.
When the system is introduced, our engineers with expertise in defining templates will assist you and propose the operation method that best suits your business needs. After that, you can make additions or changes on the definition sheets or maintenance screens.
Prebuilt "business templates" designed for various customers' businesses are also available. Customizing these templates to match your business will help you introduce the system.
SmartFAM comes with APIs for connecting with other systems and supporting your business growth. The following customizations are possible by using these APIs:
Since the APIs are provided through a Web service interface, they are not dependent on system architectures to be connected.
Figure 4 shows an example of system integration using the open API. Table 1 shows an example of the API interface.
Fig.4 Integration through API
| No | Category | Function |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Facilities ledger | Search, register, update, delete |
| 2 | Maintenance task (inspection, etc.) | Search, register, update |
| 3 | Inventory (spare items) | Search, check in/out |
| 4 | Reference documents | Refer to attached files, register files |
| 5 | Authentication | Check user information and authentication |
Tablets and mobile devices running Android® 4.0 are supported to allow field information such as inspection results to be entered on site. *5)
The system also works off-line, allowing operation where wireless environment is poor.
English and Chinese (simplified characters) are supported for maintenance management operations in overseas factories. Furthermore, up to ten languages can be supported by translating business templates and messages.
We continue to improve the SmartFAM system by adding more functions and enhancing its service menu. Future developments include:
