An asset management framework to improve longer term returns on investments in the capital intensive industries

The general global problems in the capital intensive industry seem to be over-capacity and low returns on investment. The means to increase returns on investment are to decrease the operating costs or to increase the turnover of capital. From the physical assets' point of view, these requirements mean a need for dynamic and continual life cycle management, optimal capacity development, higher overall equipment effectiveness, higher reliability and flexibility of physical assets, and lower maintenance costs of production equipment. In order to develop methods, such as dynamic life cycle management, optimal capacity development, OEE development etc., to manage the above mentioned problems a general asset management framework is needed. Theframework should be based on the business objectives of the firm and on analysing and modelling various businesses and business environments from the standpoint of the physical assets taking into account technological characteristics, economic structure and uncertainty in the industrial sector in question. In this paper, a methodology to build an asset management framework and a description how it results in asset strategy has been depicted and demonstrated.