7 Essential Tips for Choosing the Right Asset Management Software

Sophisticated enterprise asset management (EAM) software is indispensable for businesses that rely on maximizing the output of expensive, complex assets. The right EAM solution not only guarantees asset availability by ensuring timely maintenance, but also equips senior leaders with the insights needed to protect and optimize their overall investment—whether that asset is an offshore drilling platform, nuclear power plant, manufacturing line, jet aircraft, or any other critical asset.

Below are seven practical tips drawn from IFS North America and IFS AB’s top EAM experts, designed to help you extract maximum value from your EAM investment.

1) Consider PAS‑55 and the demands it places on EAM.

PASS-55, the British Standards Institute’s new public‑available asset‑management standard, is gaining rapid global traction. The standard requires that IT systems managing asset data support information sharing and knowledge retention across an organization, with a special focus on outsourced activities. PAS‑55 mandates coverage of the entire asset life cycle—from planning and engineering, through maintenance and operation, to retirement or decommissioning.

To meet PAS‑55, an EAM platform must provide a single, accurate, real‑time view of all asset information—one version of the truth. It should support portals that allow external parties—engineering firms, maintenance contractors, and other stakeholders—to interact directly with the database. By delivering comprehensive life‑cycle coverage, you position your organization for potential compliance and demonstrate best‑practice commitment to customers, regulators, and investors.

Bottom line: Whether or not PAS‑55 is immediately relevant, full life‑cycle support is a best practice that delivers measurable benefits and future‑proofs your EAM selection.

2) Open your system to contractors with simple technologies.

Granting contractors visibility into your EAM schedule allows them to plan resources, tools, and materials in advance, reducing ad‑hoc communication and accelerating response times. When contractors can record their work directly into your system, you receive real‑time status updates, eliminate double‑entry errors, and enable tighter coordination with internal teams. The result is a smoother maintenance process, fewer production interruptions, and improved asset uptime.

Bottom line: Ask any EAM vendor how they enable secure, role‑based access for external parties and whether that integration works for the diverse contractors you engage.

3) Treat the asset life cycle as one long‑term project.

Viewing an asset as a project that spans its entire life—from design and construction through maintenance, refit, and eventual decommissioning—highlights the need for a fully integrated EAM/ALM system. Integrated project management should link engineering data to maintenance workflows, align resources with budgetary constraints, and provide visibility into the financial impact of shutdowns or refits. This holistic perspective reduces downtime costs and informs smarter investment decisions.

Bottom line: A robust EAM that couples project, engineering, and finance functions turns asset stewardship into a strategic advantage.

4) Embrace micro‑level project management for every maintenance activity.

Large asset‑intensive operations often run thousands of small projects simultaneously. An integrated EAM that fuses project, finance, and work‑order data enables precise cost capture, real‑time budgeting, and detailed analysis by cost center. It also eliminates the inefficiencies of juggling separate project and maintenance tools—reducing administrative overhead and preserving critical asset data.

Bottom line: Ensure your chosen EAM records every maintenance project seamlessly, so that operational and financial insights are always available.

5) Adapt to an aging workforce and capture tacit knowledge.

Demographic shifts mean many seasoned experts are retiring while a younger workforce with different expectations is emerging. Enterprise software must provide a collaborative environment—forums, wikis, threaded discussions—to surface and preserve the informal knowledge that would otherwise be lost. Features that encourage organic knowledge sharing transform institutional memory into actionable data.

Bottom line: Look for Enterprise 2.0‑style capabilities that enable employees to contribute expertise in real time, safeguarding corporate wisdom.

6) Prioritize usability to lower TCO and improve data quality.

Intuitive interfaces reduce training costs, increase user adoption, and improve data integrity. As younger generations join the workforce, they expect clean, responsive software that highlights critical information—such as fault trees or visual dashboards—without requiring multiple screens. An EAM that lets managers sift quickly from the “boring” majority of data to the few critical alerts can dramatically accelerate decision‑making.

Bottom line: Choose a platform that balances rich functionality with a user‑friendly experience, ensuring higher data quality and faster insights.

7) Integrate EAM with ERP to realize lean maintenance.

True value emerges when EAM is either an integrated part of a broader enterprise application or tightly connected to the company’s ERP system. Integrated solutions eliminate data silos, streamline spare‑part ordering, align scheduling with HR data, and enable cross‑departmental visibility. Lean maintenance, achieved through real‑time data flow between EAM, purchasing, and finance, reduces redundant work and boosts operational efficiency.

Bottom line: Evaluate how an EAM package will integrate with your existing ERP landscape to avoid manual data transfers and unlock enterprise‑wide efficiencies.

Conclusion

Every organization is unique, but the themes above—compliance readiness, contractor integration, holistic project management, knowledge capture, usability, and ERP alignment—are universally applicable. Selecting and deploying an EAM solution that embraces these principles transforms asset management from a routine function into a strategic driver of enterprise value.

About the author:

Patrick Zirnhelt is the Director of Sales for Asset‑Intensive Industries at IFS North America. With more than 16 years of experience in enterprise systems—including development, implementation, and sales—he is a professional engineer registered in Ontario, holds an MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business, and earned a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University.