INTERVIEW: Dave Loesch, Oracle’s Sr. Director of Enterprise Asset Management (Part 1)

As mentioned yesterday, here is part one of our exclusive interview with Dave Loesch, Oracle’s Sr. Director of Enterprise Asset Management.  Dave was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about what EAM is, who should use it, its challenges and how quickly it can provide value to organizations.  Oracle’s official webpage about its EAM technology is here.

Stay tuned for the second segment of this interview, slated to appear over the next 7-10 days.  In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to start a discussion in the comments.

Part 1

MIPRO Consulting: Dave, thanks for joining us.  Let’s start with the basics.  Tell us a little about your background.  How did you get involved in Maintenance Management?

Dave Loesch (Sr. Director, Enterprise Asset Management at Oracle): After growing up in the Navy’s preventive maintenance program as a sonar technician, I joined a maintenance management software company called The System Works in 1986. That company was ultimately acquired by Indus (now Ventyx), but I still think it’s the best name for a maintenance software company.

MC: What is your mission at Oracle?

DL: To deliver seamless, robust Information Technology (IT) solutions that deliver actionable business intelligence at the lowest total cost of ownership.

MC: So let’s back up for the folks who aren’t familiar with maintenance software. Why do people buy EAM systems? In plain English, what benefit do they get from them?

DL: Maintenance software – or what is often called Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) or earlier, Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) – helps maintenance and repair professionals organize the people, material, tools, space, and asset access to perform preventive, corrective and predictive maintenance activities. Having a well-organized maintenance strategize helps organizations in 3 primary ways.

First let’s talk about cost. Maintenance trades people and contractors are expensive (often over $100K per year in loaded cost) and when you plan their work well, they get more done thereby reducing OT and staff augmentation requirements. Well-maintained equipment consumes less energy, lasts longer and breaks down less. Emergency maintenance can cost 3-10X as much planned maintenance because of the additional costs you incur for emergency freight charges, OT, contractors etc.

Next is capacity.  In a continuous process environment—pulp/steel mills, refineries, electricity generators, wastewater treatment, mines, cement etc—equipment downtime costs thousands of dollars per hour because revenue stops when the equipment does. In other kinds of industries—fleets, transmission and distribution networks, even classroom space in a university—if I don’t have a well planned maintenance and construction strategy I will not be able to fully utilize my assets. Unutilized asset capacity is expensive especially in increasingly competitive markets.

Finally, maintenance software helps insure compliance.  Maintenance folks often work in hazardous environments. This can mean worker safety or hazardous chemicals used in cleaning or special production processes. There are numerous regulatory agencies—OSHA, FDA, MSHA, EPA, FERC—that have a specific and direct interest in maintenance activity. A maintenance system helps companies organize their maintenance practices so workers remain safe and fines avoided.

MC: Did Oracle/PeopleSoft always have its own Maintenance Management software?  It seems many folks think this is a v1 product.

DL: Oracle has had an EAM solution since 1992. That was the year we first shipped an EAM product embedded in the JD Edwards ERP platform. In 2000, we partnered with Alcoa to deliver EAM for the ERP applications within the Oracle E-Business Suite. In 2006, we shipped PeopleSoft Enterprise EAM, which started with the JD Edwards design model and was enhanced by the Oracle E-Business Suite team. PeopleSoft Enterprise EAM is currently on its third major release (the product initially shipped in 8.9). It’s important to keep in mind that when PeopleSoft Enterprise EAM was first released, it really wasn’t a v1 product. First of all, it leverages significant components of the PeopleSoft Enterprise suite (HR, Asset Management and Projects to name a few) that had already been deployed and tested by thousands of customers. Furthermore, the product took full advantage of our nearly three decades of experience delivering EAM to JD Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite customers.

MC: At MIPRO, we call Maintenance Management the “hidden gem” within the PeopleSoft product suite. Why is it that relatively few PeopleSoft customers know about the product?

DL: We are committed to promoting the value of our EAM offerings and make sure that our huge base of global customers is aware of the benefits they can achieve with our PeopleSoft Enterprise EAM offerings. We find many customers have been very focused on a number of other topics, like compliance, the economy, and security, in the past few years, and maintenance hasn’t grabbed the executive attention it deserves. We see that changing now.

MC: Speaking of customers, what types of clients should be looking at Maintenance Management?

DL: Any company that employs skilled trades people like plumbers, electricians or mechanics. EAM can provide value to customers that contract its maintenance to 3rd parties, but in that case it’s not so much a workforce management tool as it is a solution for ensuring the capture of complete information to drive better asset-related decision making and for managing supplier relationships.

(Part 2 Coming Soon)

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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized specialist in PeopleSoft Enterprise EAM implementations.  If you’d like to learn more about PeopleSoft EAM or would like to learn how it can help your organization, please feel free to contact us or download our whitepaper, entitled PeopleSoft Maintenance Management: An Introduction and Overview of Benefits.