Infor, a leading provider of business application software, has announced Infor Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Enterprise Edition version 11.0 to help drive collaboration and innovation.

The latest iteration is specifically designed to provide users with considerable gains in its ease of use. The upgrades allow users to better leverage technology and make actionable decisions in real time. Infor EAM v11 embraces the cross-departmental structure and provides a better way to orchestrate people, assets and processes to advance visibility and value.

The core upgrades include a modern user interface (UI), improved mobility and analytics, “zero downtime” upgrade capability and an enhanced safety management module. Infor EAM v11 incorporates the latest Infor technology innovations of the Infor 10x platform and broad support for Infor Ming.le Infor EAM v11 was purposefully designed to improve upon the basic problems that are commonly faced with managing assets.

“With Infor EAM v11 our users are no longer limited to working from a desktop, a windows computer or a particular browser. Instead, they are able to access the data in our system at virtually any time, on a wider array of devices or browsers,” said Stephen Tatton, director of business systems & new technology, JBT Aerotech. “Infor has provided us with a suite of EAM tools that fit our needs and help save us time and money.”

Key enhancements include:

* Rich aesthetic development – this latest release has taken a pivotal step forward in user friendliness by offering inherent support for a wider variety of Internet browsers. Microsoft Internet Explorer version 10, Safari and Google Chrome are among the browsers that are supported for Infor EAM v11.

The solution also features converted front-end requirements, allowing users to run applications on a 100 percent HTML 5 web client. This benefits users by providing them with an open environment for applications to be deployed, while also helping to stabilise the application platform.

This modern approach provides users with access to high-definition videos, faster data entry and better information feeds to help boost overall user productivity.

* Zero downtime upgrade – Infor EAM v11 offers an option for zero downtime, which enables a product upgrade to occur while users are simultaneously engaging the software. In most cases, the applications will continue running, uninterrupted regardless of an update to the solution or database, change to the operating system (OS), movement of the application from an on-premises deployment to the cloud or archiving of large volumes of data.

This feature is designed so that users will not notice a difference in their experience until after their activities are completed, at which point, the subsequent upgrades will take effect.

* Enhanced safety management module – Infor EAM v11 features a safety management module that is designed to identify potential hazardous situations, materials and activities. The solution delivers a method of control for users working with such risks to protect both people and the environment. The module uses the three pillars of safety tabs, lockout/tagout (LOTO) and permitting to manage asset welfare.

The safety tabs allow users to predefine hazards and precautions, whereas the LOTO process is used to help ensure that dangerous equipment is properly shut off during maintenance work; and the permitting capability adds a greater range for control for the overall execution.

* Equipment configuration – Infor EAM v11 also introduces Equipment Configuration, which is comprised of two functions: equipment configurations and equipment generation.

This enhancement allows users to define what the new equipment will look like, including the actual equipment, the asset, position or system. After configuration users can then begin the generation process, and create the equipment structure. This process is not only user friendly but also saves time and promotes greater accuracy.

* Checklists – the latest version of Infor EAM includes the checklists feature to provide an advanced level of task detail to identify what maintenance steps have not been completed. The checklists function helps to solve issues that are associated with data collection, and now provides users with the ability to break down the tasks into individual steps to better manage individual processes.

This provides Infor EAM v11 users with a greater level of visibility into everyday functions of asset management.

* Mobility and business intelligence – the solution includes Infor EAM Analytics, an application to maximise applied business intelligence and data visualisation. Paired with Infor EAM Mobile, an innovative application for the Apple iPad, the solution offers a well-rounded and agile approach for utilising actionable insights. The combination of these applications provides a harmonised experience for managing business processes.

* Part conditions – many industries maintain parts under various conditions. Transit does this for tires, oil and gas does this for tubulars, and others simply use it to store away multiple user-definable states of condition for their parts. Extended features for Infor EAM v11 provides users with much more capability to naturally incorporate varying part conditions into their business process, in the office and in the field.