Asset ownership costs must be viewed through the correct lens.
Too many asset owners take an upfront cost view but do not factor in the ownership cost associated with keeping their assets in service.
Have you adequately evaluated your total cost of assets? Do you understand all the aspects that add to overall ownership cost?
Lower total ownership cost through preventative maintenance
Connecting an asset does generate an additional upfront cost to your asset purchase. Your choice needs to also take into consideration the life of the asset. For example, most Aids to Navigation assets have a minimum 12-year life expectancy.
The true benefit of telemetry-based assets is the ability to understand all your assets and perform preventative maintenance. There will always be reactive maintenance but minimising these costs is crucial to keeping the total cost of ownership down.
There is a perceived downside of telemetry-based assets – ongoing service costs. However, this is mitigated when you factor in the price of reactive servicing when assets break.
When maintenance crews can be pre-booked and scheduled, it allows for better planning and less overhead. Keeping a maintenance team in place to look after problems as they arise, costs your business vital funds and does not aid productivity. By being proactive, you are adding much needed peace of mind as an asset manager.
What is the cost of peace of mind?
Total Asset Management (TAM) tools like Star2M are designed to give you an overall picture of your assets to manage them effectively. This means maintaining and communicating asset performance, aiding your bottom line.
Existing devices can even be monitored using add on telemetry assets.
Adding telemetry – now possible and more accessible than ever
You don’t always need new assets to monitor them effectively. Star2M offers two unique solutions to add the connectivity you need:
- The Remote Monitoring Unit allows assets without internal telemetry hardware to transfer data and communicate with your system.
- The Universal Gateway is a protocol converter designed for more complex applications. It connects to products of various protocols and allows these assets to talk to an entire system.
Telemetry – understanding ongoing costs
As stated above, telemetry does add cost to an asset, but Sealite and Avlite assets have two major telemetries, SATCOM and GSM, priced at the same entry point*, so the choice is yours depending on how you plan to use the system.
In fact, SATCOM costs are now more competitively priced than GSM*. Star2M, for example, has one-way plans available from under $7 (USD) per month.
Other connectivity types including AIS and Bluetooth, can give you the information you require but do not have the depth available to save you cost in the total cost of the ownership cycle.
Find out more about Star2M
Star2M offers customers an application suite designed to support their asset management lifecycle.
This gives all your departments, including the asset owner, installer manager and maintainer, a single shared view. Start your FREE trial today.
*In most cases, there may be minor variances depending on model.
