Examining The Basics of Asset Investment Planning (AIP)

If you’re a finance or operations leader for your organization, limited budgets, aging equipment or infrastructure, and daily pressure to maximize profitability are likely all just a part of your job description. 

While finding a way to balance these various challenges can seem never-ending, what really helps is gathering and leveraging the data needed to build plans and budgets that support necessary improvements. And doing that is only possible when you have the right systems in place. 

That’s where Asset Investment Planning (AIP) comes into play. 

What is AIP?

AIP software enables leaders across a variety of industries to maximize their funding by leveraging asset and facilities data -- from their CMMS or other information source -- to prioritize capital investments, strengthen financial reporting, enhance compliance, and improve profitability. 

With AIP, you can determine the best course of action by analyzing and comparing multiple funding scenarios based on distinct factors like asset types, current asset health, changes to expected useful life, regulatory requirements, and budgetary constraints. 

This enables you to transition from a reactive “fix it when it breaks” mentality to a more proactive mindset that gets ahead of potential challenges to maximize the lifespan of your assets so you can get the most out of capital planning decisions.   

Who is AIP for? 

AIP is a powerful strategy for anyone that manages a complex asset portfolio and is focused on optimizing their investments to maintain long-term asset reliability and efficiency. It is also an incredibly effective solution if you are looking to: 

• Enhance asset prioritization: AIP enables organizations to prioritize assets based on condition and criticality that helps to justify funding decisions, reduce emergency repair costs, and address important sustainability and safety initiatives.
• Improve budgeting accuracy: AIP allows organizations to more accurately allocate resources and predict timing by leveraging data from a variety of sources.
• Minimize risk: With AIP, organizations are no longer caught unprepared by a major asset failure or other operational disruption. Instead, you can plan for repairs, replacements or enhancements by examining trends and deterioration.
• Save money: AIP helps smooth out budget spikes and allows organizations to properly plan for major expenditures and improve their ROI on each asset.

How can AIP support your organization? 

Recently AIP has emerged as a valuable tool for finance and operations leaders across numerous industries, enabling them to shift from reactive responses to proactive and preventive maintenance and investment decisions. 

• Government leaders can use AIP to prioritize infrastructure projects, simplify financial forecasting, and better ensure the safety and stability of their community. 
• Education decision-makers rely on AIP to maintain safe and effective learning environments by identifying their most critical assets, creating more alignment between investments and long-term organizational goals, and ensuring better overall financial transparency and compliance. 
• In manufacturing, AIP minimizes the risk of unexpected shutdowns and reduces overall waste in the production process. It also supports higher production efficiency, limits disruptions caused by equipment failures, and simplifies long-term capital planning. 
• For healthcare leaders looking to extend the usage life of their most critical assets, while simultaneously exploring additional long-term capital and operational investment opportunities, AIP is an invaluable resource – it supports increased equipment reliability, reduced operational costs, and increased regulatory compliance. 

If you would like to learn more about asset investment planning and some of the distinct ways it can serve your organization to help you achieve your unique financial and operational goals, we just released a brand-new guide called “What is AIP?” 

Download the complete guide today and start shifting to a long-term perspective, so that you can unlock the full potential of your organization's assets while minimizing operational costs and risks, meaning greater efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.