Setting Asset Risk Data

The risk management features of AssetChief work by analyzing the data in, and relationships between, the assets in your asset registry. So the first step is to make sure that your assets are fully configured, and that you keep this asset data up to date. So to get started, go through each of your assets, click Update and set them up according to the guidelines below.

The following are the fields you should pay attention to:

Date Acquired

It's important to know how old an asset is, because the reality is the older an asset is, the more likely it is to fail.

Availability

This is the current availability of the asset. If an asset is down for maintenance, for example, then it should be marked as being unavailable. It's important to keep this up to date so the system can ascertain the consequences of that asset not being available, and its impact on your organization.

Asset Supervisor

The Asset Supervisor is the single-point-of-contact for that asset. Any requests that need authorization will go through that supervisor.

Reference / Serial Number

Knowing the serial number of an asset is important to tracking it, and ensuring the asset it the one acquired. Knowing this information can also be important for getting quick maintenance or support responses to failures.

Shared

A shared asset is used by multiple people, and this can impact the risks associated with the asset. It means it is more likely to be used and more likely to go missing if it's not returned.

Picture

Having a photo of your asset is important firstly to determine wear and tear on the product over time, and also to help locate the asset for maintenance or in case it goes missing. Photos should be updated regularly. The system automatically keep a history of photos over time.

Risk Appetite

Indicates how tolerant you are of risks associated with this asset. If, for example, you consider the risks the necessary downside of an investment that could potentially yield high returns, then you may set this to "Hungry". If, however, the asset is difficult to replace then you may set this to "Averse". The default is 'Cautious'.

Original Value

This is the cost of the asset when it was acquired, which can help determine the intrinsic value of the asset.

Salvage Value

This is the expected monetary value of the asset when it has reached its End Of Life.

Depreciation Per Annum

The monetary value you expect this asset to go down by each year.

Lifetime

The number of years you expect the asset to last before it must be replaced.

Intrinsic Value

This is the value of the asset to the business, independent of any other assets. For example a product design patent may have intrinsic value. However, the machine that manufactures those products is replaceable and so may not have intrinsic value, because its value derives from the design patent. This is called Inferred Value, which means we infer the value of the asset based on other valuable assets it depends on.

Lease Contract Start/End

If an asset is under lease, the risk of that asset becoming unavailable increases as the lease end date become imminent.

As well as these fields, in the hamburger drilldown from the asset there are some options we need to look at:

We'll run through the important areas below:

Instrumentation

We discussed this in the asset registry section, but instrumentation has special importance to risk reporting. To make an instrumentation entry "visible" to the risk reporting, you must first set the "Considered Risk?" setting to Yes.

Next, under the instrument can be a series of triggers, which indicate an action to take when the value of an instrument falls into a certain range. Each of these triggers can have an associated impact on the asset, which you define in the Risk Impact field.

The system will monitor the history of the instrumentation/meter readings, and from this calculate the sigma (the volatility of the values). This will help inform the risk engine of how likely it is to reach the trigger, and thus trigger the risk, in the near future.

The intelligent risk engine's monitoring of the instrumentation makes it all the more valuable to enter those instrument readings on a regular basis - something you can easily do with the Tours tab as discussed in another section.

Depends On

This is where you define the list of assets that this asset depends on in order to function. This is very important for helping the system understand the consequences and impact of an asset becoming unavailable.

Alternatives

This is the list of assets that can be used instead of this asset, should this asset become unavailable. Having an alternative to an asset helps tremendously with mitigating risks. Under the alternative entry you can also specify the cost of replacing the asset, which may be a factor in determining how effective that alternative is at mitigating the risk.

Required Expertise

This section lets us define what skills are required in order to maintain or use an asset. This helps identify staff-based risks should the employee with those risks become unavailable.

Features / Services Provided

Here we list all the features or services provided by the asset. Knowing all of this information can be extremely useful when considering a replacement for the asset.

Risk Register

This is where the system calculates all of the risks related to that asset. But there's also a section in here called Custom Risks where you can enter in your own risks you have identified with an asset. These custom risks will be "inherited" by other assets that depend on this asset.

There's also an area in there called "Accepted Risks". This gets filled in when you select an existing calculated risk, and then click the "Ignore / Modify" button to accept it. This lets you modify the impact or probability of a risk, even taking it out entirely.