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A tech firm, BuySimply, has urged organisations to use data, artificial intelligence (AI) and modern technology to improve equipment maintenance, reduce costs and prevent costly breakdowns.
The company made the call at the 2nd International Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Information and Communication Technology Engineers (NIICTE) in Abuja.
Chief Executive Officer of BuySimply, Fiyinfolu Dele-Ijagbulu, said companies should move away from waiting for equipment to break down before carrying out repairs.
He said maintenance decisions should be based on the importance of an asset to the business and the cost of its failure, rather than simply on which problem is reported as most urgent.
“Too often, maintenance priorities are determined by who raises the most urgent alarm, rather than by the operational and economic impact of the asset,” Dele-Ijagbulu said.
He said organisations needed systems that could show managers which equipment required immediate attention and how equipment failure could affect production and revenue.
Dele-Ijagbulu said this was the idea behind Morvent, a maintenance and asset management platform developed by Morzoe Technologies and introduced to the Nigerian market by BuySimply.
According to him, the platform brings together equipment, maintenance and operational data to help companies understand how their assets are performing and where maintenance efforts would have the greatest impact.
He said the technology could help companies calculate the real cost of maintenance, measure losses caused by equipment downtime and decide whether to repair, replace or invest in backup equipment.
Dele-Ijagbulu said Morvent tracks indicators such as equipment uptime, maintenance cost per unit produced, asset availability, capital expenditure deferred, mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR) and unplanned maintenance work.
He added that maintenance teams could also track completed work orders, compliance with maintenance schedules, time spent on actual repairs and equipment-related stock shortages.
The BuySimply CEO stressed that the goal was not simply to collect large amounts of data, but to ensure that the information was properly captured, analysed and used to make better business decisions.
“For every kind of equipment maintained or supported in any industry, there is valuable data. The question is whether we are capturing it, capturing it correctly, and using it to make better decisions,” he said.
He said combining maintenance, equipment and operational data could help companies identify warning signs and address potential equipment failures before they lead to major downtime.
According to him, the approach could also help businesses determine whether to continue repairing an ageing asset, replace it or provide backup equipment to keep operations running.
The approach, known as Maintenance Intelligence, shifts maintenance from simply fixing faulty equipment to using technology and data to improve productivity, reduce downtime and guide investment decisions.
Also at the conference were NIICTE National Chairman, Oluwadara S. Oluwalana; Abuja Branch Manager, Rex Insurance Limited, Michael Shaibu; and Executive Director, Centre for Humanitarian Expertise and Knowledge, Funso Adebayo, among others.
