Skip to Content
Product Information
Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam

SAP IAM (Intelligent Asset Management) in a Capsule

Hello everyone,

Greetings!

In this blog, I am going to highlight the IAM functionality and Its association with Industry 4.0. I hope you might have read my earlier blog on “Industry 4.0 in a Nutshell”.

If not, you may refer https://blogs.sap.com/?p=1113838

IAM is a blend of Digital twin, Internet of Things, Machine Learning and Data Analytics.

Before we get into details, in short, I want to touch base on potential takeaways with IAM,

  • Helps to manage the entire life cycle of physical assets with the help of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) within SAP
  • IAM is a cloud-based solution helps organizations to achieve operational excellence by predicting potential operational problems before they occur
  • It enables cost control along the Asset life cycle (but It is debatable)

At first, let us look at the components available under the IAM portfolio.

  • Asset Intelligence Network (Spelt as AIN)
  • Predictive Maintenance Service (Spelt as PdMS)
  • Asset Strategy and Performance Management (Spelt as ASPM)

The symbolic view of IAM (Intelligent Asset Management):

When we look at the above picture, we come across the term “Asset Central”, in my view I can say it is the heart of the IAM suite.

  • It enables the foundation between IAM and Plant Maintenance component in EAM/S4 HANA
  • It helps business partners to access and collaborate in cloud-based network

Asset Central foundation integration with Plant Maintenance Component in EAM/S4 HANA:

A new Asset Central tab is introduced for objects such as Equipment, Functional Location, and Notification that are applicable for the SAP GUI transactions. In the Asset Central tab for equipment and functional location, we can view the following information:

  • Header Information
  • Announcements
  • Instructions
  • Indicators

SAP Notes enabling “Asset Central Tab” in EAM/S4 HANA

Post-installation, the additional function should be activated.

  • Activate Additional function AC_INT

By activating this, we get Asset Central Tab at Equipment/Functional Location/Notification level

  • Equipment/Functional Location

               

  • Notification

Note:

Post configuration of SAP EAM to get Asset Central Tab, one should configure SYCLO which is an add-on to ERP to synchronize Equipment/Functional Location/Notification, etc… to IAM tenant.

Let us have a quick glance at focus points (a few) of Industry 4.0, as they clearly define the role and association had with IAM components viz., AIN (Asset Intelligent Network) and PdMS (Predictive Maintenance Services)

  • Interconnectivity: Connecting Machines, Devices, Sensors and people (Operators/Manufacturers/Service Providers) to communicate with each other using Internet of Things by collecting/Exchanging the reliable data
  • Transparency: By collecting/Exchanging data at various operating conditions of an Asset, it provides valuable insights to operators to take a firm decision at right time to improve the efficiency of the physical asset and thereby improving production efficiency.
  • Predictive Maintenance: By usage of IIOT sensors and the technology of interconnectivity the healthiness of an Asset can be identified in life and allows machine operators to perform cost-effective maintenance rather than adopting Run to Fail concept.

Let me walk through each component of IAM suite in detail,

Asset Intelligence Network (AIN):

SAP Asset Intelligence Network helps to maintain a global registry of industrial equipment and being shared with multiple business partners such as Manufacturers/Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)/Operators/Service Providers to achieve operational excellence by taking full advantage of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Operators access up-to-date maintenance strategies and manuals from OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and in return, OEM receives asset usage and failure data for their analysis.

 

Benefits that could be achieved from AIN:

  • Provides a base for electronic data handover in the digital network
  • Asset Data integration with a common taxonomy
  • Enables collaboration with multiple business partners
  • Creates more transparency for Operators and Manufacturers on models of the technical object and related SOPs/Maintenance Manuals
  • Push communications can be established to alert manufacturers and service providers
  • Builds a knowledge base for technical objects

Asset Intelligent Network emphasis the term “Digital Twin” by adopting features from the guidelines of VDI 2770 and DIN 91406.

VDI 2770 Guidelines: The aim of this guideline is to simplify the transfer of documents between manufacturers, retailers, operators, and external service providers and to standardize the nature of manufacturer information (classification, structure, metadata, and file format).

DIN 91406: Automatic identification of physical objects and information on physical objects in IT systems, particularly IoT systems.

In the latest version-2005 of AIN, a new feature called UID (Unique Identification Number) has been introduced to find the technical object.

To understand new features of AIN Version 2005, please refer my blog

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/28/sap-asset-intelligence-network-whats-new-with-version-2005/

 

Predictive Maintenance Service (PdMS):

By definition, we can understand what it does. The main objective is to reduce asset downtime by predicting its failure. There are a lot of debates going on about the IAM-PDMS prediction strategy.

In this component, we can really sense about IAM association with key attributes of Industry 4.0, one of the main focus points of Industry 4.0 is predictive maintenance by the usage of IIOT sensors.

When we talk about IAM-PdMS, one may come across a few big topics viz.,

  • Taxonomy
  • Rules and Alerts
  • Failure Modes
  • Machine Learning
  • Advanced-Data Analytics

In my view, I can say PdMS is the bread and butter of IAM, as without this IAM cannot exist. The entire play is based on the strategy that one might adopt to predict asset failures.

The aim of PdMS is to maintain a registry of equipment that uses a common definition viz., Classification & Standardization.

Why we need Classification?

  • With the Classification, PdMS tie-ups the asset-related information electronically to create a Digital Twin.
  • Organizations can understand, analyze, compare technical characteristics, operating environmental conditions, Potential failures, and related maintenance activities.

Why we need Standardization?

Standardization emphasis on data collection and exchange of information to achieve RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance)

  • Data standardization allows the electronic collection and transfer of data, which results in an improved quality of data for RCM

Taxonomy:

The word taxonomy came from “Biology” where it briefs about identification, nomenclature, and classification of organisms, however, we too use the same nomenclature to identify industrial assets.

Two important characteristics of a taxonomy:

  • Each level is included in the level above it
  • Levels get increasingly specific from top to bottom

Failure Modes:

A failure mode describes a probable failure that could happen to a piece of equipment.

  • In an AIN scenario, the manufacturer could share failure modes with an operator. Otherwise, the operator maintains failure modes.
  • Using RAMS figures (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety), Failure Modes can help an operator to understand MTTR (Mean Time to Repair); MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), and MTTF (Mean Time to Failure).

Rules and Alerts:

Rules create alerts to notify users of anomalies, potential failures, or indicator threshold violations

  • Create rules for a model or a piece of equipment
  • Rules can create a PdMS alert from:
    • Indicator value
    • Indicator threshold status
    • Alert from machine – Error code
    • Aggregator values
      • Count, first, last, min, max, sum, average, a standard deviation of an indicator
      • Over the last XX seconds, minutes, hours, days

Machine Learning:

At very high-level the definition is, Computers learn patterns of input/output variables from historic data and based on trained models system makes predictions and detects an anomaly.

Analysis Tool:

Based on the selected duration for the selected Indicators system display the graph

 

SAP IAM-PdMS adopts the attributes of ISO 14224 guidelines to facilitate taxonomy and to collect, exchange, and analyze data to optimize RCM. In my view, Here comes the challenge for an organization to set up boundaries of an asset to collect and exchange data. One might achieve this by understanding the Topology concept.

 

Asset Strategy and Performance Management

SAP Asset Strategy and Performance Management (ASPM) is a cloud solution that enables plant managers and reliability engineers to measure and improve the performance of their assets and optimize maintenance strategies.

In IAM ASPM we can see new master data viz.,

Assessment Templates

This is used while assessing equipment, location, and groups. This can be of following types:

  • Risk and criticality assessment template
  • FMEA
  • Checklists
  • RCM

Assessment

This feature for assessing and viewing the calculated scores. This can be of the following types:

  • Risk and criticality assessment
  • FMEA
  • Checklists
  • RCM

Impacts

This feature is to view the impacts of the conducted risk assessments. For example, an event may impact multiple aspects each with its own severity. This is defined as impacts, for example, the safety of people and plant, environmental compliance, operational loss, financial impact, and so on.

Scale and Dimensions

This feature is to define the question and answers based on which the assessment is done.

 

Risk and Criticality assessment:

We use this assessment for each of the physical assets to determine the most suitable analytical process Viz., RCM, FMEA, PM Review. The criticality can be identified based on “Risk Score”.

While evaluating risk rating/score, one should consider a few important factors which are not limited to,

  • OI – Operational Impact Factor
  • OF – Operational Flexibility Factor
  • MC – Maintenance Cost Factor
  • ISE – Impact on Safety and Environment Factor

The calculation of risk score is based on different dimensions and scales for different impacts

And based on thresholds defined for “Risk Score” actions viz, PM review/FMEA could be initiated.

 

FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis):

Failure Mode & Effect Analysis (FMEA) supports the analysis of the potential reliability problems and enable quick and flexible actions and mitigate failures. FMEA is used to identify failure modes, their causes, and impact on the asset or system.

  • Identify and recognize potential failures including causes and effects.
  • Evaluate the effects and prioritize identified failure modes.
  • Identify and suggest recommendations to either eliminate or reduce potential failures from occurring.

FMEA Template:

Assessing FMEA for each of the physical assets:

 

PM Review:

Based on the results of the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) assessments, certain maintenance activities are recommended. These recommendations can help correct and prevent equipment breakdowns and failures by fine-tuning the frequency of PM checks or adding a few additional checks as per recommendations.

 

RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) Assessment:

The process is used to determine and to ensure physical asset efficiency/function as per its design with a minimum of maintenance by understanding design limitations. RCM assessment follows the guidelines of SAE JA 1011.

The results of RCM not limited to,

  • Scheduled Tasks
  • Improvement proposals
  • Failure Management Policies – One Time Changes / Run-to-Failure

The RCM mainly considers three types of maintenance tasks which are,

  • Time-Based – Scheduled
  • Condition Based (PdM and Real-time Monitoring) – Based on the condition indicators
  • Proactive Maintenance/Run-To-Failure at certain conditions

 

Pictographic view of FMEA/RCM Assessment flow:

 

 

I hope this blog could able to brief you all about the core capabilities of IAM (Intelligent Asset Management) Suite and its association with Industry 4.0

 

Yours faithfully,

Pardhasaradhi Reddy.C

 

 

Assigned Tags

      24 Comments
      You must be Logged on to comment or reply to a post.
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Pardha,

       

      Thanks for providing valuable information

       

      Regards

      Abubaker

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi,

      You are welcome!

       

      Regards,

      Pardha Reddy.C

       

      Author's profile photo Carolina Vizcaino
      Carolina Vizcaino

      Hello Pardha, great summary about the whole advantage of using SAP IAM solutions. If you could be so king, I would like to ask you two specific doubts about the daily use of some of these solutions.

      On one hand, the best way to define "Systems" and the best use of the topology definition. Is their any connections with the ISO 14224 taxonomy? or should they be more related to PdMS monitoring?

      On the other hand, I´m trying to use the "Smart Matcher" but with no success. Do you have any detail info about this functionality? When I execute it there is no info. Daes it need any preconfiguration?

       

      Thanks a lot in advance.

      Best regards,

      Carolina

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Carolina,

      Thank you for taking your time to read and leave your valuable comment!

      Here we should understand the core driving factor to have IAM in place…after all the achievements using IAM strategies viz, PdMS/Machine learning etc…we could get into ASPM to have FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) and RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) Assessment  to  get certain instructions from these assessments to perform certain changes to current PM(Preventive Maintenance) strategies to reduce downtime.

      Above all, SAP IAM chooses ISO 14224 to adopt RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) design factors to collect and exchange reliable maintenance data for equipment…when we talk about collection of maintenance data for equipment, it means which is not limited to…

      1. Equipment Taxonomy and related attributes
      2. Failure data – Failure codes/Impacts on certain business parameters viz., Operations, Finance Environmental sections etc.,
      3. Equipment down time , Maintenance activities etc.,

      On other hand, Topology can be attained by understanding the over all structure of the technical system (area) in which related technical objects can be installed. How could we achieve topology ? to achieve it one should be familiar with technical object taxonomy to indicate link exists with in the network of technical objects.

      To answer your first question, I would say, yes , they are related and also dependency exists to have PdMs.

      To answer your second question, I am sorry…I do not have an idea.

       

      Regards,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo PRASHANT TELI
      PRASHANT TELI

      Thanks for the info. Very helpful !

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Prashant,

      Thank you for taking your time to read and leave your valuable comment!

       

      Regards,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo MALAY KUMAR GHOSH
      MALAY KUMAR GHOSH

      Great Insight

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Kumar Garu,

      Thank you for taking your time to read and leave your valuable comment!

       

      Regards,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo Faisal Khan
      Faisal Khan

      Thanks alot for the info as I was just looking for something like that. Since you have in-depth knowledge of this functionality, I have following queries:

      Just a note that we are on SAP S4 HANA 1909.

      Queries:

      1. Does SAP IAM comes at a price or just need to activate specific Business functions to get the full access on its underlying functions of RCB, FEMA, Preventive Maintenance etc.?
      2. Does SAP IAM covers the RBI?
      3. Being on SAP S4 HANA, to address RBI, will it be better to go for above solution or try any third party RBI based software?

      Regards

      Faisal Habib

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Faisal Habib,

      Thank you for taking your time to read and leave your valuable comment!...please find my view towards your queries...

      1.Does SAP IAM comes at a price or just need to activate specific Business functions to get the full

      access on its underlying functions of RCB, FEMA, Preventive Maintenance etc.?

      • IAM is a cloud based application and It must be procured with a different license agreement...yes, it is mainly driving the maintenance function towards Reliability Centered Maintenance by leveraging Industry4.0 concepts...

       

      • AIN - Enables collaborative Asset Management, which in turn results sharing best practices for maintenance of Equipment

       

      • PAI - Enables early prediction of failures(Potential Failures) and helps organization to implement corrective actions and increases visibility

       

      • ASPM - Enables evaluation strategy of asset performance with respect to maintenance cost and risk associated with it

       

      2. Does SAP IAM covers the RBI?

      • Yes, It does.

       

      3. Being on SAP S4 HANA, to address RBI, will it be better to go for above solution or try any third 

          party RBI based software?

      • I would rather recommend IAM than any other tool, as I can see it`s capability...but having said that, you must have to perform maintenance maturity assessment  with respect to transformation strategy of your current program and then take a wise decision...there are a lot of factors involved to get onboarded with IAM and It`s not something like plug and play concept...

       

      • As a Maintenance person, before you choose any of the maintenance software, I would like to recommend you that, consider your Investment Profile, Change Management strategy and also the need for transformation of your current maintenance program.

       

      You had better evaluate the criteria such a way that,

       

      • what if you don`t transform your maintenance program at the moment, what will be the impact on your overhead cost??

       

      • ROI factor

       

      • What if you don`t see benefits after the investment or can not able to manage the cost for the sustenance of the new technological change, how will you manage the maintenance data and Inventory that has been procured as per the proposed change??

       

      I hope you got my point...

      --

      Regards,

      Pardha Reddy.C

       

      Author's profile photo Faisal Khan
      Faisal Khan

      I can't thankyou enough for the precise and to the point replies to my queries.

      I will definitely keep all your inputs in mind.

      Just few more queries:

      Will the cloud solution be integrated with our current on-premise SAP S4 HANA ?

      Also will the data of all the Equipments /Functional Location in PM Module be synced with IAM solution for RBI or do we need to load through files? as new Equipment creation in SAP will need to be updated in IAM solution too

      Regards

       

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Faisal Habib,

      Thank you for your consideration and happy that, your queries were clarified...Please find the details for the new queries...

      • Will the cloud solution be integrated with our current on-premise SAP S4 HANA ?

      Yes, Of Course... you can.

      • Also will the data of all the Equipments /Functional Location in PM Module be synced with IAM solution for RBI or do we need to load through files? as new Equipment creation in SAP will need to be updated in IAM solution too

      We can do it with Initial Load synchronization and SAP Has provided certain APIs to handle data management.

      --

      Regards,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo Faisal Khan
      Faisal Khan

      Thanks for the clarification

      Author's profile photo Rohan Patel
      Rohan Patel

      Hello Faisal,

      I want to reach out and see if you would be interested in learning more about AsInt, Inc. In quick summary, we are developing a suite of mechanical integrity software applications for end-users across the Oil and Gas and Petrochemical industries. Below is some information about our RBI and IDMS solution in SAP.

      A good overview of the Functionality of AsInt's Mechanical Integrity APPs:

      Feel free to reach me via email rohan.patel@asint.net

      Author's profile photo Vineet Sharma
      Vineet Sharma

      Very useful article on IAM

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Dear Sharma Garu,

      Thank you for taking the time to read and leave your valuable comment...

       

      Sincerely,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo Balaram Makineni
      Balaram Makineni

      Hi Pardhasaradhi,

       

      Thank you so much for the valuable information and please keep up the good work.

       

      Regards,

      Balaram M

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Dear Balaram,

       

      Thank you for taking the time to read and leave your valuable comment...

       

      --

      Sincerely,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo Ejaz Shaik
      Ejaz Shaik

      Hi Pardhasaradhi,

      Thanks a lot for putting it in detail, really helped me understand the IAM topic.

      Regards,

      Ejaz Shaik

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Dear Shaik,

      Good to know that it helped you to gain insights...thank you for taking the time to read and leave your valuable comment...

       

      --

      Sincerely,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo Gary Pushpa
      Gary Pushpa

      Hi all, I'm a junior analyst and I've got a question. It will mean a lot if you can help me with this or point me in the right direction regarding this topic.

       

      From what I understood SAP already has a model on how to set classes, subclasses, object type and characteristics that is also in accordance with ISO 14224 to support predictive maintenance and services. Can I get ahold of a material containing such orientation? Any maturity within SAP also?

       

       

      Thanks

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Pushpa,

      Maintenance is all about to sustain the readiness of an object and for sure SAP Intelligent Asset Management is not only following ISO14224 but also ISO 55001,EN 15380 and certain DIN standards etc...

      To know more about the classification system that is being used, I would suggest you to check the ECLASS content...

       

      Sincerely,

      Pardha Reddy.C

      Author's profile photo Roshan Jha
      Roshan Jha

      This is such an informative blog, well written and explained. Thank You Sir, for sharing this. I am a planning to learn SAP Intelligent Asset Management, this blog and your other blogs will help me a lot.

      Author's profile photo Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Pardhasaradhi Reddy Chelikam
      Blog Post Author

      Dear Roshan,

      Glad that this blog helped you gain insights about SAP IAM...Thank you for taking the time to read  and leave your valuable comment...

       

      Sincerely,

      Pardha Reddy.C