Application of business rules to ERP asset management systems

¶ … information technology) has opened the door for opportunities and risks. Organizations are increasingly facing competitions in the contemporary business market environment and to achieve competitive market advantages, many organizations are increasingly using ERP (Enterprise resource planning) to decline costs and offer quality products at cheaper prices. ERP is a business integration software assisting organizations to collect, manage, store as welling as interpreting data of business activities. (Vasilec, Avdejenkov, & Sosunov, 2009). Essentially, ERP integrates core of business process using a real-time database system to achieve business functions such as asset management, purchase orders, production, track business resources and share data across various departments. Assets are very critical for organizational efficiency because assets assist organizations to generate revenues to enhance stakeholder's value. However, effective asset management is very critical for organizational efficiency. To manage organizational assets, increasing number of medium and large organizations are using asset management system integrated in ERP for effective tracking of their equipments and other assets used for organizational efficiency. Despite the benefits derived from the ERP asset management systems, its implementation is challenging. To manage assets using real time system, there is a need to integrate EAM (enterprises asset management) module in ERP, however, its implementation is challenging because of its associated business rules, which may require migrating from one business to the other.

Objective of this paper is to demonstrate the strategy in applying business rules to assist in automating business decision making in ERP Asset management.

Application of Business Rules to ERP Asset Management System

Business rules are relative recent in the contemporary ERP systems, however, business rules are used to improve quantitative and qualitative attributes of information systems. Since 1998, business rules are important elements of information systems. Moreover, business rules in the database engineering are similar to integrity constraints. Business rules also provide both user requirements and business process conformity. From a business perspective, business rules guide business behaviors, which support business policy as well as asserting business structure. (Chisholm, 2004). However, business rules are changing rapidly and being integrated in information systems. In ERP systems, business rules are used to automate decision making because they propagate through reengineering lifecycle from problem analysis to design. (Smaizys & Vasilecas, 2009).

However, ERP has many modules integrated in it and EAM (Enterprises Asset Management) system is one of the modules integrated in the ERP. For example, Infor Asset Management System is an equipment-tracking module that assists in tracking equipment as well as its associated costs. Typically, the EAM assists in defining assets, create equipment profiles, & records and locate equipment positions. Moreover, the EAM module assists in defining equipment records such as linear equipment, vehicles and track information associated to equipments' records. Additionally, the EAM uses meter's information to track equipment usage, which assists in identifying equipment that is due for maintenance in order to safeguard a costly equipment failure. (Infor, 2012). Similarly, Oracle EAM supports sophisticated and conditioned-based maintenance strategies for plants, property as well as public infrastructure. Typically, Oracle EAM assists in tracking equipment to eliminate obsolete spare parts from inventory to enhance safety and promote environmental standards. (Oracle, 2013). However, integrating business rules are very critical in the ERP- EAM module. The Fig 1 reveals the information flow of asset management system in the ERP modules, which will assist in creating the business rules.

Fig 1: Asset Management Systems Information Flow

Distributed Control System (DCS)

DSC should be installed to reduce spare part cost of inventory. DCS should be distributed across all assets to provide instructions. DSC should use input and output protocols to manage all assets.

EQ O1

Asset Business Rules

EQ O1

Delete record

Asset records can be deleted if they do not have histories and other associated records.

EQ O2

Asset location

All assets must be place in room 107

EQ 03

Asset ID

All assets must have unique ID for effective identification.

EQ4

Asset Maintenace

Operating engineering department will be responsible for maintenance and asset repair.

EQ5

Associating Tools Departments

Associated tools department is responsible to schedule the tool.

EQ6

Warranties Set Up

Warranty documents are to set up manufacturers and supplier warranty's information. The warrant document should also cover labor and material expenses.

EQ7

Equipment Profiles

Equipment Profiles should include equipment manufacturer, equipment value, and Model, Part and meter unit.

EQ8

Asset Position

Asset must be located in the each department that uses the asset.

EQ9

Asset Safety

Overall asset safety must foresee by the security department. Each department must also foresee the safety of the equipment assigned to their department.

EQ10

Asset Sold and Scrap Date

Date all scrap assets are sold must be entered in the Tracking Details, which include Manufacturer, Serial Number and Model.

EQ11

Purchase of new equipment

Information for the new asset must include:

Purchase date.

Manufacturer.

Asset costs.

Asset Model.

Vendor.

Asset estimated service life

Estimated revenue to be generated from the asset.

Country manufactured the asset.

Primary use for the asset.

Year asset is built.

Reliability ranking value.

Target power factor for the asset

Target peak demand watt for the asset.

Asset type.

Serial Number.

Purchasing Asset ID

Hardware Version

Software version,

Install Date,

Commission Date.

Risk Assessment.

Equipment No.

EQ12

Equipment Repairs

The system must include the following for the asset repairs:

Cost for the needed asset repairs.

Current Replacement Value.

Facility Condition Index based on maintenance details.

Global Asset Sustainability tracking.

EQI 01

Meter Information

Meter must measure the usage of piece of equipment.

Meter can be set to zero.

Meter is to be used for plan asset maintenance.

Measurement of meter must be meter unit.

The system must be able to delete recent meter reading.

User must be able to view meter history.

EQW 01

Warranty Coverage

Asset must have warranty record.

Warranty description should include Manufacturer, Threshold, Duration, and Supplier.

System should reveal whether warrant is currently active.

System should reveal usage of warrant length and unit of measure.

Equipment Total Usage should be recorded and in unit of measure.

The system must notify that warrant is about to expire when reaching 30 days to expire,

TEQ 01

Transferring Assets between Organizations

Only assets with status installed can be transferred. However, organization cannot transfer asset record having the following criteria:

Asset flagged Out of Service.

Asset flagged with a change notice.

Asset having work order with status Released.

Asset having a parent record and an equipment hierarchy.

Asset having child record and second parent.

Asset having a child record which belong to other organization.

Asset awaiting purchase or installed.

TEQ 02

Transferring Assets between Organizations

In transferring assets between organizations, the system should maintain equipment record of the originating organization showing that status withdrawn and flagged that the equipment is out of service.

The system should also reveal the transfer date and receiving organization record.

The system can transfer child asset records as well as retaining equipment hierarchy in the record of new organization.

The system should be able to create event record and history between originating and new organization.

The system automatically should set up depreciation record.

TEQ 03

Tracking Asset Depreciation

Depreciation assists in calculating asset depreciation expenses revealing the value of wear and tear as well as deterioration of assets.

The system should be able to calculate end of life of an asset using following equation:

"End of Life Date = Commission Date + (Est. Useful Life -- 1 day)" (Infor, 2012 p 127).

The system should calculate the annual depreciation with following equation:

"Daily Depreciation Rate = Annual Depreciation Rate / Number of Days in the Year" (Infor, 2012 p 127).

The system should calculate the annual depreciation with following equation:

"(Original Value - Residual Value) / Estimated Useful Life = Annual Depreciation Expense" (Infor, 2012 p 127).

Reference

Chisholm, M. (2004). How to Build a Business Rules Engine. Morgan Kaufman Publishers.

Infor (2012).Infor EAM User's Guide. Infor.

Oracle (2013). Oracle Enterprise Asset Management. Oracle Inc.

Smaizys, A. & Vasilecas, O. (2009). Business Rules Based Agile ERP Systems Development. Informatica, 20(3): 439-460.

Vasilec, O. Avdejenkov, V, & Sosunov, S. (2009). The framework for the implementation of business rules in ERP. Informacijos mokslai. 49.