According to Ralph Rio, research director at analyst firm ARC Advisory Group, there's been strong growth in the adoption and usage of maintenance management systems, and that growth has been propelled by four key factors: uptime, cost control, asset longevity and safety.
After a few down years due to the recession, the market for so-called enterprise asset management solutions has rebounded, reaching $2.2bn in 2011. Rio sees this market continuing to expand over the next several years, reaching $3bn by 2015. EAM solutions typically include several areas of functionality required by maintenance organizations, he notes, including: asset information management, work order management, MRO materials management, labor management and service contract management. But that's just for starters. Some companies, for instance, are adapting this maintenance-centric technology to reduce their carbon footprints as they get a better handle on their energy usage.
