The Joined-Up Approach

So what do we mean by joined-up? There are many CMMS offerings that cover the maintenance scheduling aspects of Asset Management with a modicum of financial management functionality.
For the team at D.A.S Developments their quest was to design the very latest asset optimisation solution: Acumen.
A joined-up solution had to address the following:

1. Complete Asset Register
2. Fully functional CMMS
3. Complete parts management and inventory
4. Resource pool and planning
5. Integration into locational tracking technology
6. Integration into asset monitoring technology
7. Fully comprehensive financial management function
8. ISO PAS 55 compliancy

It was also felt that all this should be wrapped in a complete CRM (Contact Relationship Management) tool to allow event planning, purchasing, invoicing and document / mail-merge functionality to ensure the system could stand alone.
The CRM aspect was another quantum leap in designing an asset management system that really does what is needed across all asset dependant sectors. To illustrate this, if you are in Acumen’s Maintenance module you can contact a supplier, log that call, buy the part by issuing a purchase order and communicate this event through a mail-merged standardised email. This email can be sent to the supplier, Goods In and the finance team simultaneously without suffering any pain from walking to the Finance department and requesting a purchase order and so on.
This is not all there is to Acumen of course. The system has been designed by a senior team of business, finance, software and engineering professionals and has spanned three years costing in excess of £1million, with a further £1million earmarked for development and build. The first phase of Acumen is to be released and tested at the UK government’s R&D facility (STFC) in Daresbury in November this year.