The ability to accumulate data has increased over recent years due to advances in digital technology, improved monitoring capability and ever-expanding fields within Asset Management systems and data bases.  

Often data is collected from multiple sources and varying management systems.  Some is automated production and process information; some is entered manually, and other information is updated based on activity.  While all information retrieved can be justified, often much of it is never referred to.  

The challenge is to ensure that the important information is readily available to the right people, and this will vary across the different layers and functions within any business. Technical subject matter experts will be interested in details of operations while senior managers are interested in high level information. Procurement people are interested in stock movements, Asset Technicians are interested in failure rates, Operators are interested in day-to-day production performance, and Accountants are interested in financial performance.

• How to structure information
• Aligning data based on critical business processes and risk (safety, production, efficiency, reliability, costs etc)
• How to present data to drive decisions and better business outcomes
• Who should manage, govern, and own the data?  
• How to best enable data transfer from capital projects
• Data standards
• How to best monitor older assets
• Training operators and maintainers to utilise the huge amount of machine data

A fitter and turner by trade, Brian is a Senior Manager with over 35 years’ experience in the Petrochemical industry. He was the Director of Manufacturing and executive sponsor of Global Maintenance Management Team Sponsor for Methanex, the world’s largest producer of Methanol.