Maximizing Uptime Availability & Reducing Costs with Asset Management

One of the most important metrics in field services is uptime availability. In this article, we explain how to quantify uptime availability, the specific ways it matters in field service, and how you can improve your uptime availability rates.

How Do You Calculate Uptime Availability?

Uptime availability is “the percentage of time that an asset is ready for operation under normal circumstances over a specific period of time.” Field service companies’ contracts with their clients often stipulate what constitutes “normal circumstances” and the given “periods of time.”

Once those parameters are established, you can use this formula to calculate your uptime availability:

Availability = Uptime / ( Uptime + Downtime )

Here is an example. Let’s say you’re responsible for managing an asset that runs 24/7/365. That works out to 8,753 hours  a year of uptime. The asset was down for service 10 hours total for the year. So, 8,753 / (8,753 +10) = 99.9 percent uptime. That is an impressive rate.

Why is Uptime Availability Important in Field Services?

When you maintain high uptime availability, your client base can access and utilize their assets more often. There are other reasons to maintain high availability too. If those assets are storage or environmental control systems—such as refrigerators or HVAC systems—you will decrease your clients’ product losses. You’ll also decrease the number of repair service calls you need to make, improving your own margins. And finally, if you have clients in regulated industries, they may also need to maintain certain levels of uptime for compliance.

To Maintain Uptime You Need to Know Your Assets

Your field service company needs to maintain good records on all the assets you manage. To start, you should know each asset’s:

• Expected life cycle
• Best preventative maintenance schedules
• And whether they require special servicing tools

That knowledge helps you maximize uptime for assets already up. But you also need to know what to do when they go down, so you can restore service as fast as possible. Identify common failures for each asset and archive manuals and knowledge base articles for those ahead of time. Document current configurations so your field service technicians know how to reset those assets if major repairs are needed.

Empower Your Human Resources

To maintain uptime, you need to give your technicians, schedulers, and all your other resources the best tools possible. An empowered workforce is an effective workforce. They need access to a range of vital information.

Client location information

At a basic level, your personnel must know where clients and their assets are located. In addition, they should know the location’s point of contact and the asset’s exact location inside the client facility.

Incident identification

Your personnel need to know precisely what service they must complete when they show up to work on an asset. “It’s broken,” isn’t enough information to efficiently restore service. You can provide them with checklists they must complete while on site. They also need to know what parts and special tools are needed for servicing.

Asset information

They also need detailed information about the assets themselves. A comprehensive asset tagging system makes it easy for your technicians to verify they’re working on the correct asset. They also can use that tag to pull up a history of what has been done to that asset in the past.

Equipment

In addition to information, your technicians need the proper tools and spare parts available to complete the job. Ensure they have the most frequently used parts with them and access to check other inventory locations for faster parts acquisition.

Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is the best way to proactively ensure client assets remain available. Ensure your company always conducts maintenance at proper intervals. Any lapses might result in unnecessary failures.

Predictive maintenance

Predictive maintenance is the ability to track repair data over time to isolate components that show a failure pattern and replace these items during existing maintenance windows instead of waiting for them to fail. Predictive maintenance decreases the number of unplanned service trips, so not only will you increase your uptime, but you’ll also reduce your internal servicing costs.

Put It All Together

So, your personnel need the right tools and information to help ensure asset uptime. One of the best options is giving them everything they need in a single toolkit. Service management software like Dynamics 365 from Velosio puts all the tools you need together on one platform.

Asset Management Software

You want software that can track all the relevant data about your assets. You want to track:

• Asset location
• Servicing needed
• Upgrades and updates needed
• Preventative maintenance schedule
• Current configurations
• Software versions
• Current gauge readings

Modern asset management software is more than just an asset inventory. It can tie asset entries to active work orders and your scheduling system. It can help you identify tasks that need to be completed and act on that information.

Advanced scheduling

Field service management software lets you know where your resources are at any given time. Where they started their day, where they are at this exact moment, and what is on their itinerary for the rest of the day. You can also view profiles of different personnel in the field to identify who has the skill sets needed to address high-priority issues that come in on the fly.

Remote access

Having all these digital capabilities is nice, but if your technician is on-site and can’t access any of it, that could be a problem. Your field service management software needs remote access capabilities from mobile devices that your techs will have in the field. You need them to be able to access asset location, service histories, relevant knowledge base articles, and other pertinent information when and where they need it the most.

Reporting

It is right in the name: field service companies must provide high-quality service and demonstrate that they have provided it to their customers. Those customers may not always see all the work you’re putting in to meet SLA compliance. You also need to see if you’re reaching other key metrics.

• What is your mean time to repair?
• What is your first-time fix rate?
• And, of course, what is your uptime availability for different assets?

You also want to track other information, like failure trends among different asset types. Knowing your asset life cycles and when failures happen allows you to incorporate replacement schedules during preventive maintenance instead of waiting for failures.

Remote Assistance

Remote assistance tools give you the ability to help less experienced workers to get help from experienced colleagues while they’re on site. They can show senior colleagues the problem first-hand and receive real-time interactive guidance.

IoT Diagnostics

IoT diagnostic tools can report on problems as they’re occurring, or in the case of predictive maintenance tools, warn you if a fault is likely to occur soon. Some IoT tools even offer remote repair capabilities, which can drastically improve uptime.

Velosio Can Help You Increase Uptime on All of Your Assets

Having the proper asset management tool in place will help you improve your service quality, uptime availability, and reduce your operational costs. Field service software, like Dynamics 365 from Velosio, can help you do just that. So, if you’re ready to improve your field service company’s ability to increase uptime, contact Velosio about Dynamics 365 for Field Service today.

Maximizing Uptime Availability and Reducing Costs with Asset Management