assetDNA

Asset intelligence technology

WHITEPAPER
Asset
intelligence:
What it is
and why it
is critical
now
Prepared by Infotech Marketing
& Communications Pty Ltd
on behalf of Relegen Pty Ltd.
Contents
1. Executive summary ................................................................................. 3
2. Why is asset intelligence critical now? ................................................... 3
3. The asset data gap: Our biggest challenge ............................................ 4
4. Trusted asset data: The risks and rewards ............................................. 5
5. The holy grail: A single source of truth ................................................... 5
6. What is an asset? Challenging traditional assumptions ........................ 6
7. The importance of global unique identication for every thing............. 6
8. Keeping tabs on your assets for real-time, real-world insights ............... 7
9. Using mobile apps to improve asset data quality, and protability ........ 8
10. Business applications .............................................................................. 8
11. Implementation guidance: Conducting a pilot ...................................... 11
12. The future of asset intelligence: Could it be crowdsourced? ............... 11
13. Relegens asset intelligence solution: assetDNA ................................. 12
14. Key takeaways ....................................................................................... 14
15. Taking the next step .............................................................................. 15
16. About Relegen Pty Ltd .......................................................................... 15
17. References ............................................................................................ 16
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
3
1. Executive summary
Todays organisations face a complex set of challenges.
Continuing market uctuations are keeping capital and
operational budgets tight while the pace of business
accelerates. So they have to be more productive and get
more out of their assets, at lower cost. Those that do not,
risk losing their competitive advantage or becoming targets
for takeovers by those that do.
To meet these challenges, organisations must gain deeper
insights into their operations so they can make faster, more
informed decisions. To do this they require what is called
asset intelligence a complete, accurate and true picture of
their current business capabilities.
This white paper explores the concept of asset intelligence
and offers insights into how new technology applications
can help organisations improve the quality of data in
corporate information systems and:
Create a single, trustworthy point of truth for asset
intelligence to enable better, faster decision making
Know with certainty what things they have, where they
are, who has them, when somethings due, how theyre
operating, where theyve been, where theyre going
Empower corporate information with real-time, real-world
insights from the eld through the integration of smart
asset identication systems, new signals and sensor
technologies and mobile web-based applications
Deliver the right amount and type of information to users
in the context of their roles and workows for making
more informed decisions, at all levels of the organisation
Enable organisations to broaden their denition of what
an asset is to be any thing that is important to their
business and to provide an easy ability to manage these
things uniquely
Give greater, enterprise-wide asset visibility that can be
used to prevent unplanned business interruptions and
promote optimisation of resources on a global scale
Introduce new capabilities for reducing risk and efciently
meeting regulatory, safety, environmental and other
required compliance across the enterprise
Transform the management of assets to make them
more productive and less costly to maintain
By using this new-found asset intelligence, organisational
leaders can not only meet todays challenges head-on but
also signicantly improve enterprise-wide productivity, lower
costs, reduce risk, improve safety and security overall,
maximise return on assets and secure competitive advantage.
2. Why is asset intelligence
critical now?
The complexity and interdependency of todays global
business environment means organisations must do more
than simply maintain or manage assets. Regulators want
enterprise-wide compliance, stakeholders want company-
wide cost base savings and bigger prots, customers want
high-quality products delivered world-wide on time, staff
want better, safer working conditions and communities
demand corporate social responsibility.
Today the need has never been greater to transform asset
data into actionable insights that feed into enterprise-
wide decision-making processes beyond engineering,
maintenance or production so enterprises can maximise the
productivity of resources and drive sustainable growth.

The development of a new International Standard for Asset
Management called ISO 55000 reinforces the view that
there is signicant potential to improve performance with
better enterprise-wide asset management.
Source: Aberdeen Asset Management: Using Analytics to Drive Predictive
Maintenance March 2013
Lets take the example of a mining enterprise operating
heavy duty haulage truck eets at multiple mine sites.
While exactly the same vehicle may be in operation at
each location, it is likely that the processes to maintain and
In todays globally
competitive economy,
organisations must do more
than simply maintain or
manage assets
Paul Bennett, Managing Director, Relegen Pty Ltd
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
4
manage these assets will vary from site to site. Assuming
some differences in operating environments, these different
management practices will almost always result in variations
in the performance of these vehicles.
In such scenarios, organisations are challenged to gather
the intelligence needed for enterprise-level decisions that
drive asset optimisation and maximise returns across
the business in a timely way. And yet, this is where the
signicant gains can be made. Similarly, it is difcult to
demonstrate a consistent approach to maintenance,
production, safety and security as organisations strive to
meet increasingly complex compliance and regulatory
mandates.
What is clear from this example is that without enterprise-
wide asset intelligence, organisations not only expose
themselves to greater risk, but more importantly, they
will not be able to fully exploit the underlying value that is
otherwise locked away in their capabilities.
These conclusions are also supported in a recent report
by technology research and advisory company, TechNavio,
whose analysts have forecasted the Global Enterprise Asset
Management Applications market will grow at a CAGR of
6.45 over the period 2011-2015. One of the key factors
contributing to this growth is the demand for a single
platform to improve enterprise-wide asset performance
visibility and real-time information management. However,
the report also cites that the lack of internal cross-functional
collaboration will be a challenge for this market and one that
must be overcome.
1
3. The asset data gap:
Our biggest challenge
Whilst organisations have always collected information
about their assets, the ability to glean actionable
intelligence, easily and in a timely manner, continues to
elude most. In the past, business units created their own
systems for tracking asset data to meet their specic needs,
contributing in a large way to data that is inconsistent and
incomplete. More recently, organisations have invested
heavily in enterprise asset management [EAM] and
enterprise resource planning [ERP] systems to address the
spread of data and to centralise disparate functions. Further
complications arise from the increasing volume of external
data coming into organisations, so much so that it may be
difcult to know where to begin to look for insights.

All of this has culminated in a complicated and disparate
view of assets at the enterprise level. Despite the abundance
of data in these systems, there is still a lack of knowledge or
intelligence, about the assets recorded at all points of their
lifecycle, in the real-world and in real-time.
Relegen has helped the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service achieve enterprise-wide visibility and real-time
tracking of approximately 6,000 weapons and personal defence equipment that are geographically-dispersed among 37
land-based and 11 vessel armouries around Australia.
The solution
As part of the implementation, every asset was tagged with
HF RFID global unique assetDNA IDs which serves to unify all
the information that exists about the asset, with the real-world
asset. Authorised ofcers now use the assetDNA mobile app
with a built-in RFID reader to verify the issue and receipt of
assets to ofcers [asset check in check out], manage transfers
between locations and conduct physical asset audits.
The benets
Delivering benets beyond tracking weapons and personal
defence equipment, assetDNA enables the Australian Customs
and Border Protection Service to better protect the safety of its
ofcers, improve security around the issue and receipt of
armoury and improve staff productivity. Security features ensure
assets are issued and received by ofcers with appropriate training and authority and data-driven audit trails provide
accurate records of who received what and when. The solutions lifecycle management capabilities track individual assets
as they move through dened business processes and ag items that are due for inspection, maintenance and replacement.
Administration staff also spends less time completing audits and compiling reports for Customs and Border Protections
Central Ofce, enabling the Central Ofce to swiftly make critical decisions based on the latest information at hand. For more
detailed information about this asset intelligence deployment, you can read the extended article on www.assetDNA.com
Case study Real-time armoury inventory tracking at the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
5
Just because we are collecting data doesnt mean insight
and action will follow. In its recently released 5th Annual
Digital IQ Survey, consulting rm PwC found that while
62% of respondents said that data insights can give them a
competitive advantage, 58% said that moving from data to
insight is a major challenge.
2
One of the fundamental reasons why it is difcult to make a
direct connection between an organisations assets and the
true value they represent is because the asset and its data
continue to operate in dis-connected worlds. Organisations
must rst work to bridge the gap the gap between data
and assets, ction and fact, between corporate strategy and
operational reality. Better asset knowledge management or
asset intelligence as we call it, is the missing link.
4. Trusted asset data:
The risks and rewards
Trusted asset data is crucial to good decision making.
Without condence in the integrity of asset data, decision
making is compromised and organisations expose
themselves to signicant risk. For some, this can result
in breaches of safety, security and compliance and for
others, it will mean lost product and untapped opportunity.
Ultimately, when asset data is problematic, prots can be
lost, M&A processes hindered and shareholder value eroded.
Recent reports from analyst organisation Aberdeen Group
conrm Relegens view that most organisations feel the pain
of poor data and see a direct correlation between it and the
quality of their business decisions.
In one Aberdeen survey, 70% of organisations expressed
their dissatisfaction with the accuracy of their business
decisions. In another, 42% responded that an alarming
number of business decisions are based on inaccurate and
incomplete data. Others voiced concerns about the vast
amount of data that remains inaccessible, underutilised and
stored in separate information silos so it is not possible to
develop a clear picture all while operational budgets shrink
and the pace of business accelerates.
3
Robert S. Distefano & Stephen J. Thomas also argue a
compelling business case around the costs of poor asset
information and impact on shareholder value in their book
Asset Data Integrity is Serious Business.
4
There is, however, a more interesting angle to this scenario.
As highlighted in the Aberdeens report Asset Management:
Using Analytics to Drive Predictive Maintenance, even with
reduced operational budgets, companies can signicantly
improve performance with a data-driven approach to asset
management. Best-in-class organisations were shown to
have a 31% reduction in maintenance costs [contrasting
with 0% reduction in poorer performers], only 1.7% in
unscheduled asset downtime [as against 14.8%], 91%
overall equipment effectiveness [compared to 73%] and
they outperform in return-on-asset expectations by 20% [as
against minus 11%].
5
Source: Aberdeen Asset Management: Using Analytics to Drive Predictive
Maintenance March 2013

Clearly the risks and rewards are signicant.
5. The holy-grail:
A single source of truth
The challenge facing most organisations is to link asset
data from different data silos in the enterprise into a single
source of truth and one that is anchored to the points
of interest that provide the business capabilities of the
organisation their real-world assets.
The last thing organisations want or need, however, is
another database to manage and maintain. Rather, what is
needed is a way for organisations to preserve their current
investments and improve the integrity of their corporate data
without having to rip out and retry.
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
6
This lends itself to the bringing together of asset data in
a single unied view, where data is integrated, rather than
replicated and where redundant attributes can be hidden
or eliminated and new, real-world, real-time insights can
be incorporated.
By connecting the dots between data and assets,
organisations can create one version of the truth that
reects the real world in real-time. This single source of
truth becomes the basis for smarter decision making, risk
reduction and performance improvement. This is what is
we call asset intelligence.
6. What is an asset? Challenging
traditional assumptions
Assets are the things that make your organisation unique.
They are the capabilities that set your organisation apart from
others and create superior value for your customers. They
are not the exclusive domain of accounting, maintenance or
engineering. They are your competitive advantage.
In the light of this, it is Relegens view that organisations
should be rethinking their answer to the question What is
an asset? Indeed it could be any thing that is important
to you and your business. In some situations the assets of
an organisation may appear to be obvious. A rail network
has rolling stock, tracks and major infrastructure. But thats
not all. Sometimes, the smallest and least visible of assets,
such as a simple switch, can make a signicant difference to
product delivery and customer service.
Often what organisations prioritise as assets are those items
on a balance sheet. But in most organisations this is not the
case. At its most basic, the British Standards Institutions
Publicly Available Standard for the management of physical
assets [PAS 55] denes an asset as plant, machinery, property,
buildings, vehicles and other items that have a distinct value to
your organisation. In the broadest sense, however, an asset
is any thing that is important to your business. Its a unique
point of interest that delivers a business capability.
If you accept that an asset is a capability of a business,
then any list of potential assets is diverse. In addition to the
obvious plant, equipment, infrastructure, parts and supplies,
you must also consider people, systems, processes,
environment, documents, customers, evidence, natural
resources and more. In a series of papers related to the
topic of Asset intelligence, the worlds largest IT consulting
rm, Deloitte, also re-denes an asset as any signal from
anything from anywhere that is important to you-the user.
6
What is more, assets are not static. They have lifecycles,
operate in workows and therefore have relationships with
other assets, can be recycled and re-purposed and they have
a history. They also have rotatable components, which have
unique properties and lifecycles of their own.
Quite often, the challenge of managing the vast amounts
of data associated with these unique and changing
attributes overwhelms traditional asset management
software systems. However, the development of new asset
intelligence platforms and smart asset identication systems
are crucial steps in ensuring assets, their components,
histories, relationships and their lifecycles, are better
managed across the enterprise in support of the overall
goals of the business.
7. The importance of global unique
identication for every thing
Todays multi-channel, multi-national, global supply-
chain and multi-party order-to-delivery processes mean
organisations of all types need to have greater visibility
into their things, whatever and wherever they might be.
Whilst this visibility will mean different things to different
businesses, there is a fundamental principle that is common
to all and it must begin with the unique identication
of each and every asset that is deemed important to an
organisation.
An identier that is unambiguous and globally unique
enables organisations to identify an item and associate
information with it, through a unique serial number that
stays with it and on it, through its life. It means data integrity
An asset is any thing that
is important to your business.
They are your business
capabilities. They are your
competitive edge
Paul Bennett, Managing Director, Relegen Pty Ltd
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
7
is assured throughout the asset lifecycle from cradle-
through-recycle-to-grave. It is the enabler for best practice
asset knowledge management or as we call it, asset
intelligence.
Then, with an incisive view of assets, relationships, events
and processes, organisations can stop making guesstimates
and start making informed decisions based on accurate
information about actual real-world conditions that drive
competitive advantage.
For example, different manufacturers of spare parts who
share a common customer may each use the same number
or alphanumeric combination to describe items that are
completely different in form and function. Even within the
same organisation the lack of unique item identication
works against enterprise-wide asset optimisation. Multiply
this across a multi-faceted global supply chain and the
problems are compounded.
RFID tracking systems are often presented as solutions
to this challenge. While they are an important piece of the
puzzle, they are just one component of a much greater
system. Rather, it is asset intelligence technology which
works to bring it all together to deliver a full and robust
solution. Asset intelligence identies assets, items and
components with certainty, using global unique asset
identication, directly associating them with the information
that is held about them across the enterprise via a central
registry. Asset intelligence then enables new real-world
insights to be captured in real-time and over time. Finally,
asset intelligence enables all these truths to be easily
shared with all those who need to understand and act on it.
8. Keeping tabs on your assets
for real-time, real-world insights
Asset identication and tagging technologies play an
important role in the asset intelligence ecosystem because
they help bridge the gap between data in corporate
information systems and real-world assets in the eld. They
can be afxed to virtually any thing so relevant information
can be accessed on-the-spot and new operational data can
be collected, simply by scanning the tag with a hand-held
device such as a PDA or smartphone. They help deliver high
quality asset data to corporate information systems and
enable those systems to better understand what is happening
in the real-world. This visibility can further be translated into
actionable asset intelligence closing the loop between
information systems and the real world, enabling smarter
business decisions, faster than ever before.
In the past decade much has changed in the technology
of asset tags. Innovation has fuelled new applications
and deepened the penetration of existing ones. More
and smaller things are being tracked, more cheaply than
ever before, even by consumers using their smartphones.
The barcode has gone 2D, increasing the amount of data
contained within the code and applications for RFID in
business are increasing as the cost-benet equation
improves. RFID has even been identied as key to the
coming Internet of Everything the connecting of people,
process, data and things.
There is now an abundance of these and other tags on the
market big, small, active, passive, LF, UHF, long-range, tags
for reading on metal, ruggedised tags, waterproof, reproof,
shockproof, disposable, tamper-proof and tags that can
be built into manufacturing processes. What
is more interesting, however, is that the
tags themselves are becoming
smarter. Technology now
exists so that tags are
able to sense,
monitor and
initiate changes
in response to
their environment
without the need for
human intervention.
However, the RFID revolution is really only still in its early
days and most of the potential for value creation is yet to
be realised. Part of the reason for the slow uptake is that
understanding and evaluating tagging and sensor suitability
poses a signicant challenge because of the myriad of
available technologies, each with its own advantages and
disadvantages. Notwithstanding the need to justify the ROI
of business process improvement, organisations also need
to consider things like frequency, standards compliance,
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
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8
memory, form factor, interference issues and afxation, all
of which may be a foreign language to most executives.
Thus what we see today is many RFID implementations
being used to simply identify assets and track their
location offering no more real advantages than using
lower-cost barcodes with unique IDs rather than thinking
about how to take greater advantage to improve business
processes. This viewpoint is reinforced by Bill Hardgrave,
founder of the University of Arkansas RFID Research
Center. When addressing RFID adoption issues in the
RFID Journal, he says many organisations, retailers in
particular, are making a common mistake by substituting
RFID for bar-code technology and keeping the same manual
processes in place. But, he said, automating processes to
reduce mistakes and improve efciencies is just the rst
step. To truly benet from RFID, we must move beyond
incremental improvements and use the technology to
introduce innovations for gaining and sustaining competitive
advantage.
7
9. Using mobile apps to improve
asset data quality, and protability
Accepting the proposition that asset intelligence is the
single point of truth that can be trusted for better decision-
making, then a critical source of this intelligence will
need to come from mobile enterprise asset management
technologies. According to the Aberdeen Groups research
into the manufacturing sector, industry leading organisations
are 2.5 times more likely to integrate mobile technology with
enterprise asset management.
8
The most obvious benet from mobile EAM
implementations are increases in the productivity of eld
operations and avoidance of the risks of manual asset
data captured by humans that may be subject to error.
Equipping operators with hand-held devices eliminates
time-consuming, paper-based work orders and enables
employees to locate assets, collect data, conduct audits and
undertake inspections more efciently. RFIDs or barcodes
can be afxed to virtually any thing so relevant asset
information is accessible on-the-spot, simply by scanning
the asset tags. The ow-on effects are real-time visibility of
asset conditions, better operational decision-making and
improvements in asset integrity management.
Mobile applications can also improve worker safety by
enforcing Take 5 and other risk assessment systems into
workows. What is more, there will always be an electronic
record of these activities, making it easy to demonstrate
regulatory compliance.
Beyond these mostly-local benets however, is the potential
for much greater gains.
With the advent of cloud-based architectures and the
proliferation of mobile devices, there is the potential to
accelerate the capture of real-world asset data, not only
by eld workforces, but by any mobile device and deliver
this information to enterprise applications. This approach
permits those with the appropriate permission employees,
partners, suppliers, service providers or even customers to
collect, share and use asset data, anywhere, anytime. And,
as these people access enriched asset data and continue to
contribute to it, the value of enterprise asset information or
asset intelligence as we call it, grows signicantly over time,
as does the quality of decision-making.
10. Business applications
Innovative thinking exemplies the applications by which a
diverse range of organisations are using
asset intelligence to gain a competitive advantage.
So what types of organisations are proting from asset
intelligence? How are they using it?
An excellent example of the use of smart asset IDs to
enhance a product or service and demonstrate the time and
cost savings of using mobile data capture is an application
jointly developed by Boeing and Fujitsu for the inspection
of emergency equipment on commercial aircraft. Boeing
says airline operators can reduce operating costs, reduce
inspection time, eliminate labour-intensive maintenance and
provide on-the-spot access to maintenance histories with
the airline industrys rst comprehensive RFID technology
for commercial airplanes. For example, with this new
Source: www.boeing.com
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
9
system, the inspection of oxygen generators for Boeings
777 aircraft has been slashed from 6.5 hours to just 15
minutes, a reduction of 90%. It has also contributed to a
75% reduction in oxygen generator inventory and extended
the asset lifecycle by 20%. You can easily imagine how,
with this example, asset intelligence becomes even more
compelling when applied across eets and multi-site
operations.
9

But innovative asset intelligence solutions are not only
being embraced by technology companies. A French wine
producer of premium quality Bordeaux wines is using RFID
to prove the authenticity of each bottle to customers and
gain visibility into its own supply chain.
10
In neighbouring Italy, Milans Malpensa Airport has installed
50,000 tags to equipment and issued its staff with RFID-
enabled smartphones to increase efciencies in repair and
cleaning operations.
11
By using RFID the UKs Addenbrooke Hospital has nearly
doubled its asset usage rates, thereby reducing the need for
excess rentals and purchases, as well as slashing the time
employees previously spent searching for missing items.
12

RFID technology in the US plant of heating and ventilation
manufacturer Carrier has helped reduce shipping errors by
80-90% and increased productivity by 33%. Despite its use
of the latest in lean manufacturing techniques, the company
says it was essential to use RFID to achieve these benets.
13
Government bodies are using asset intelligence systems to
help them manage and maintain a diverse range of assets
including properties, emergency equipment, signs and trafc
lights. The technology tracks the service and maintenance
performed on each asset, replacing time-consuming and
error-prone pen and paper techniques.
14

Case study Automated asset management inspection system
A NSW Hunter Valley mining company has installed Relegens solution to improve inspection routines for all assets
along a 4.5 kilometre over-land conveyor at its raw coal processing facility. Trucks deliver raw coal from the mine area
to the processing facility where it undergoes multi-stage processing and sampling. The site will leverage assetDNA to
standardise important inspection routines along this line. These inspections must be undertaken at least once every
shift to ensure the plant operates at full capacity, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The solution
As part of the implementation, every asset was tagged with
Relegens combination HF RFID-barcode assetDNA ID incorporating
a globally unique identier which serves to link the asset to all
the information that exists about it such as inspection histories
and workows. Employees will use a ruggedised hand-held PDA
with a built-in HF RFID reader to identify, inspect and verify the
operation of every asset at the raw coal processing facility. The assetDNA mobile app will prompt staff with standardised
inspection routines, automate the capture of accurate eld data and provide visual guides for maintenance in the form
of digital photos. Productivity will also be enhanced with the ability to log defects, update status and close jobs in the
companys Pulse maintenance system on-the-spot without leaving the assetDNA application.
The benets
Transparency of real-time operations will greatly improve by providing management with a holistic view of the current and
historical condition of all the assets operating at the facility. And, because the system documents every action, there will
be a full audit trail of every inspection conducted, what action was taken and what remains outstanding. Financial benets
will come from accurate tracking and reporting of person-hours for both routine inspections and ad-hoc tasks. This will
aid planning and forecasting and ensure maintenance costs are accurately allocated against the appropriate cost centres.
Furthermore, the new system has incorporated the companys Take 5 risk assessment tool into the assetDNA mobile
application and provides an electronic record of assessment for meeting compliance. This also means that it is possible
that the future inspection routines cannot even be started without this important personal OH&S analysis being performed.
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
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10
Case study Issue and maintenance of mission-critical safety equipment
When a Kalgoorlie nickel smelter and concentrator went in search for a new automated system to keep track of its
inventory of mission-critical respirator equipment for staff and contractors it turned to Relegen. This operation is a fully
integrated nickel business comprising mines, concentrators, a smelter and a renery. The proper functioning and use
of personal protective equipment [PPE] is one of the most important issues confronting this site. Each month nearly
AU$ 1million in PPE is on issue to staff and contractors. The risk of misplacing or
losing these assets is a signicant cost to the business and ill-tting or problematic
equipment can present a serious risk to health and safety.
The solution
Now, with assetDNA, every item of PPE and every user has a unique identier so
that assets can be directly associated with the person to whom it has been issued.
The system also keeps track of training and certication, ensuring the issue of
equipment is always to those that have been trained in how to use it. Furthermore, it
tracks critical servicing information and ags when the users next routine t-test is due.
The benets
Using Relegens solution, respirator service technicians can access all information about the [10,000+] assets in their
respirator centre via an easy-to-use touch screen. Whether this relates to calibration, certication, physical location,
issuance, usage history, cost, inventory levels, or maintenance scheduling, every asset is managed with relevant and
accurate information from this single, central location. There are also signicant nancial benets arising from the new
system. Full asset life-cycle tracking enables better reporting on depreciation, budgeting and forecasting and aids the
planning of PPE requirements for intensive usage periods. Furthermore, all costs associated with the issuance and
maintenance of PPE can be accurately tracked and allocated against the correct cost centres.
For more information about additional asset intelligence applications and other success stories,
please contact Relegen on +61 (0)2 9998 9000 or sales@assetDNA.com
The remote structural health monitoring of aging
infrastructure, such as bridges, is another sector reaping
the benets of this technology. To detect surface cracks in
concrete and other construction materials, sensors must
be pervasively deployed. In the past such deployment has
been costly. Now, ultra high frequency RFID tags operate
as sensors so that their antennae are capable of detecting
cracks. Detection of a crack severs the antenna of a tag,
manifesting in a drop in the strength of the signal with which
the tag responds to a reader.
15
Meanwhile, scientists in both the UK and Australia are said
to be abuzz about data collected with RFID from bees.
An international group of scientists have collaborated on a
project at Black Mountain in Canberra where tiny passive
RFID tags, each with a unique identier, were glued to the
bees backs so scientists could study their homing behavior.
16

Similar technology was also used by the UKs Queen Mary
University where scientists were hoping to nd new ways to
choose efcient routes for data to travel over a network, as
well as to determine the effect of habitat degradation on
bee numbers in Europe.
17
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
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11
11. Implementation guidance:
Conduct a pilot
After an organisation has examined its business case
for asset intelligence and evaluated technology options,
Relegen recommends deploying a pilot program.
Unlike consultant-intensive feasibility studies or costly
implementation programs, a pilot project is a way to
observe a real-world application with signicantly lower cost
and risk and increased return on investment. This allows
stakeholders and specialists to learn from the experience
and rene the requirements for a larger-scale deployment.
When approaching an asset intelligence pilot project it is
important to consider the following:
Start by asking the right questions: For example, what
assets are important to you and to your business? Where
are they? What is their history? How do they relate to
other assets? Do you already have known data about
them? Or, is the data you need new?
Engage the experts, especially when it comes to
integrating asset IDs, sensors, signals and mobile
applications.
Never underestimate the importance of educating
your workforce about asset intelligence so that the
organisation can think collectively about where the
technology might be further deployed for greater
business benets.
Always look to replicate the success across similar
processes, across the entire enterprise.
12. The future of asset intelligence
Could it be crowdsourced?
Consulting rm Deloitte proposes that asset intelligence will
be a key enabler in helping organisations transform their
business from reactive to predictive and in many cases,
to fully automated. In the future, signals from sensors will
actually initiate and terminate business transactions.
18
In Signal strength The rise of asset intelligence: Moving
analytics from reactive to predictive-and beyond Deloitte
says: Beyond a new way of producing signals and
managing transactions, asset intelligence is also an
opportunity to use information to drive smarter action and
reduce process or service latency associated with human
decision-making.
So in this sense, organisations should have asset
intelligence technology uses and applications on their
innovation radar, now. They should be considering how it
can improve existing processes as well as how it can help
them increase market share by creating new processes
and product offerings that tie into this new wave of data
collection and mobile distribution.
There is also another development that Relegen says
organisations should consider.
It foresees signicant advances in the improvement of
asset data and in turn the management of assets, as a
result of crowd-sourced data. This is the process by which
organisations engage and leverage the dispersed knowledge
of individuals the crowd through web-based information
systems.
This capability can equip organisations with real-time and
real-world intelligence, previously unavailable to them, thus
greatly enhancing the accuracy and efciency of decision
making for both operators and executives. This would have
been unthinkable only a few years ago.
While it is early days, innovative organisations are tapping
into the information gathered by multiple individuals to solve
seemingly insurmountable problems in lightning fast and
cost-effective ways.
Take maritime transportation productivity and safety for
example. It might surprise most of us that the 40,000+
kilometres of the US coastal and inland waterways have
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
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12
never been completely surveyed, meaning that maps are
incomplete or out of date. So, there is limited data as
to where hazards might cause transport interruptions or
serious accidents. In 2008 alone there were 322 recreational
vessel groundings, resulting in 13 deaths, 241 injuries and
US$3.4 million in property damage. However a new system
known as ARGUS [Autonomous Remote Global Underwater
Surveillance] is being trialled whereby crowd-sourced data
can be collected by any ship, at all times and shared with all
maritime operations for better decision-making.
19
In another example of crowdsourced asset intelligence,
researchers in the Netherlands are encouraging the public
to register the location of life-saving automated external
debrillators (see http://www.aed4.en/) via the mobile
web, so that anyone [including non-medical personnel] can
quickly locate an AED during a cardiac arrest emergency
using a smart phone app. Researchers knew there were
approximately 20,000 AEDs throughout the Netherlands yet
there was no central register. Now the location of more than
12,000 AED devices in the Netherlands have been registered
and the initiative is going global.
20
In Australia, the National Library [NLA] has been using
crowdsourcing to improve the quality of its digital assets
held in Trove by encouraging the public to correct the
electronically translated text of its digital newspaper
collection, thereby improving the full-text search capability
for all site visitors. Since August 2008 more than
100,000,000 newspaper lines have been corrected saving an
estimated AU$12 million that would have been required if
the NLA had to employ staff to do this project.
21
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13
13. Relegens asset intelligence
solution: assetDNA

Developed by asset management specialists in mission-

critical environments, assetDNA helps organisations
signicantly improve their approach to enterprise asset
management. It does so by bridging the gap between
information in corporate systems and assets in-the-eld
between strategy and operational reality transforming data
silos into actionable information and a single point of truth to
support better decision making.
assetDNA is a fully-integrated solution which includes easy-
to-use software, ready-to-run mobile applications, smart
asset IDs [barcode, HF & UHF RFID, direct part marking,
covert security identiers] and Relegen professional
services. Its easy to integrate with corporate information
systems EAM, ERP and CMMS as well as with tablets,
touch-screens, SCADA and GPS systems. Implementation
can be as simple as the out-of-the-box assetDNA Pilot Kit or
a fully-customised system nely tuned to business needs.
The solution is at the forefront of asset intelligence
technology. Its development is driven by practising
engineers; its open architecture is built on the latest .NET
technology. It takes advantage of the latest developments
in asset tagging technologies and its asset-centric
approach enables organisations to re-dene what they have
traditionally regarded as an asset to be anything that is
important to their business and all at a much more granular
level than ever before. In doing so it supports the delivery
of the intelligence that is needed to make faster, smarter
decisions, improve operations, mitigate risks and drive
business performance of assets in ways that far outpace
traditional approaches to asset management.
Globally unique
assetDNA IDs
Relegen is a leader in asset
identication and tagging, its deep
expertise gained delivering asset
intelligence technology and services to
the Defence, mining, manufacturing,
and law enforcement sectors for more
than a decade.
Relegen sources and supplies a wide range
of asset tagging and identication systems
including HF & UHF RFIDs, covert security
identiers, as well as having in-house
capabilities for direct part marking, barcode
label printing and engraving, integrated barcode-
RFID tags, and a patented, multi-layered system
that combines RFID, barcode and microdots
into a single smart solution.
Learn more at www.assetDNA.com
or contact Relegen on +61 (0)2 9998 9000
or via sales@assetDNA.com
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14
14. Key takeaways
Todays organisations are facing a new range of challenges:
rising operating costs, increasing regulations and volatile
markets. In such environments organisations must focus
on operational excellence and productivity, across the
enterprise. They must work to intimately understand what
capabilities [assets] they have and use this knowledge to
drive performance. And yet, despite investment in corporate
information systems, enterprise asset management remains
a key challenge. While there is an abundance of data in
disparate systems, there is lack of integrity, compromising
strategic decision-making and exposing organisations to
signicant risk.
To address this challenge, organisations must look to
asset intelligence technology which integrates enterprise
asset data silos with real-time insights from the eld.
Organisations can then use this new-found asset intelligence
to signicantly reduce the time between information,
decision and action to drive innovation in asset utilisation,
business processes, productivity and protability across the
enterprise a quantum change from traditional approaches
to asset management.
Innovative organisations are using asset intelligence to
improve productivity and operational efciencies, enhance
asset knowledge management, improve asset integrity and
asset lifecycle management, and drive business performance.
They are recognising and embracing the principles of
effective asset intelligence including:

Endorsing that quality asset data is predicated on global
and unique asset identiers
Dening their assets uniquely so they can be associated
with all the information stored about them across the
organisation

Gathering new signal and sensor input data for a full 360
degree view of corporate assets.
Linking data from sensors, mobile devices, SCADA and
other inputs to EAM and ERP systems
Ensuring that all knowledge and histories about the
asset are kept with the asset and not buried in data silos
or lost with retiring employees
Realising that mobile data capture applications must be
integrated with corporate information systems if those
applications are to achieve their potential and contribute
to the ongoing improvement of corporate data.
Deploying asset intelligence systems to enhance
products and services and support occupational health
and safety objectives
Using asset intelligence technology to help meet
compliance and regulatory mandates by providing a
foundation for trusted information
Moving decision-making towards real-time so operators
can identify problems before business interruptions occur
What do these initiatives mean in terms of benets?
Simply put, a fast growing body of research shows
that having asset intelligence will positively impact the
protability and competitiveness of an organisation
Through well executed asset intelligence systems
enterprises will achieve better, more timely decision-
making because corporate asset data is integrated with
real-time insights for a complete and enterprise-wide view
and delivered to users in the context of their workows
The value proposition is clear, not just for asset-intensive
industries, but for all organisations both large and small
better decisions and superior performance is enabled
through real-world, enterprise-wide asset intelligence.
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15
15. Taking the next step
Talk to experts at Relegen to learn more about assetDNA
and explore the many ways asset intelligence technology
can be put to work for your organisation.
Relegen Professional Services can help organisations
develop a road map for building capabilities for asset
intelligence. Our staff can also help with:
Asset intelligence technology evaluation and
implementation
Asset identication and tagging [barcodes, HF & UHF
RFIDs, microdots and direct part marking]
Asset auditing, inspection and certication
Asset intelligence consulting and advice
Asset lifecycle management
Asset management consulting
Business process development and review
Improving asset data integrity
Mobile data capture/mobile EAM
Physical asset audits
RFID asset tracking systems
For more than a decade, Relegen has been involved in asset
intelligence technology projects for Defence, government,
mining, manufacturing and industry, at a strategic consulting
level as well as in project implementation, management and
operation. Our experienced Professional Services team will
bring this asset intelligence expertise to your business.
16. About Relegen Pty Ltd
Relegen has a proven track record of supplying people and
technology to the Australian Defence Force since 2001.
Today, its professional, technical and engineering expertise
is also employed in asset intensive industries including
mining, government, utilities and more. Relegen is an
accredited major service provider on the Defence Materiel
Organisation Support Services Panel, ISO 9001 certied
and a preferred supplier to top tier rms. The company has
built a solid reputation for delivering professional services
and innovative technology solutions to meet some of the
toughest engineering challenges across defence and mining.
It was recently included in Rio Tintos Top Ten Supplier
Recognition Program two years in a row.

For more information, please visit www.relegen.com and
www.assetDNA.com
+61 (0)2 9998 9000
sales@assetDNA.com
www.assetDNA.com | www.relegen.com
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd sales@assetDNA.com
www.relegen.com | www.assetDNA.com +61 (0)2 9998 9000
16
17. References
1. TechNavio. (2012, October 01). Global Enterprise Asset Management Applications Market 2011-2015. Retrieved from http://
www.technavio.com: http://www.technavio.com/report/global-enterprise-asset-management-applications-market-2011-2015
2. PWC. (2013). PwCs 5th Annual Digital IQ Survey. Retrieved from www.pwc.com: http://www.pwc.com.edgekey.net/ca/en/
technology-consulting/technology-advisory/digital-iq.jhtml
3. Aberdeen Group. (2013, April 05) Analytics Trends 2013: The IT Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.aberdeen.com:
http://aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/8426/AI-it-analytics-trends.aspx
4. Distefano, Robert S. & Thomas, Stephen J. (2011). Asset Data Integrity is Serious Business. New York: Industrial Press Inc.
5. Aberdeen Group. (2013, March 19) Asset Management: Using Analytics to Drive Predictive Maintenance. Retrieved from
http://www.aberdeen.com: http://aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/7937/RA-enterprise-asset-management.aspx
6. Deloitte. (2010) The rise of asset intelligence: moving analytics from reactive to predictive and beyond. Retrieved from http://
www.deloitte.com/: http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_bh/bh/insights/b746fb3bc77ad210VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm
7. Hardgrave, Bill (2013, April, 28) Dont just automate Innovate! RFID can do much more than speed up existing processes.
Retrieved from http://www.rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10633
8. Aberdeen Group. (2013, March 01) Mobility Making Waves in Manufacturing. Retrieved from http://www.aberdeen.com:
http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/8386/AI-mobility-collaboration-manufacturing.aspx
9. Boeing (2011, May 17) Using RFID frequency to inspect planes. Retrieved from http://www.boeing.com: http://www.boeing.
com/Features/2011/05/bca_radio_frequency_05_17_11.html
10. Swedberg, Claire (2013, July 17) Chateau Le Pin Uses NFC to Ensure Its Wines Authenticity. Retrieved from http://www.
rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10834
11. Swedberg, Claire (2013, June 19) RFID Helps Milano Malpensa Airport to Complete Maintenance Work On Time. Retrieved
from http://www.rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10781
12. Swedberg, Claire (2013, June 02) RFID Boosts Medical Equipment Usage at U.K. Hospital. Retrieved from http://www.
rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10916
13. Roberti, Mark (2013, June 19) Carrier Takes Manufacturing to a Higher Level. Retrieved from http://www.rdjournal.com:
http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10718/
14. Swedberg, Claire (2013, August 14) RFID-based Solution Offers Municipalities a Low-Cost Solution for Tracking City Assets.
Retrieved from http://www.rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10912
15. Bhattacharyya,Rahul, Kalansuriya,Prasanna and Sarma, Sanjay (2103, August 04) Monitoring Aging Infrastructure. Retrieved
from http://www.rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?10867
16. Swedberg, Claire (2011, August 14) RFID Helps Scientists Study Honeybees Homing Behavior. Retrieved from http://www.
rdjournal.com: http://www.rdjournal.com/articles/view?8466/
17. Heath, Nick (2008, February 28) Scientists track bees with RFID. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com: http://www.zdnet.
com/scientists-track-bees-with-rd-3040151281/
18. Deloitte. (2010) The rise of asset intelligence: moving analytics from reactive to predictive and
beyond. Retrieved from http://www.deloitte.com/: http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_bh/bh/insights/
b746fb3bc77ad210VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm
19. SURVICE Engineering Company. ARGUS [Autonomous Remote Global Underwater Surveillance]. Retrieved from http://
argus.survice.com/
20. The AED4.eu project. Retrieved from http://www.aed4.eu
21. Hagon, Paul. (2013, February, 12) Trove Crowdsourcing behaviour. Retrieved from http://www.nla.gov.au: http://www.
information-online.com.au/pdf/Tuesday_Concurrent_2_1125_Hagon.pdf
2013 Relegen Pty Ltd. Relegen and assetDNA are registered trademarks of Relegen Pty Ltd.
All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
This publication contains the opinions of Relegen Pty Ltd only and has been written in general
terms and therefore cannot be relied on to cover specication situations. Application of the
opinions in this material will depend on the particular business circumstances involved and
we recommend that organisations obtain professional advice before acting or refraining from
acting on any of the contents in this publication. Relegen Pty Ltd accepts no duty of care or
liability for any loss as a result of any opinions in this publication.
CONTACT US

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