Octave Attune EAM (formerly HxGN EAM) - US & Canada

Hexagon EAM is the main software my consulting firm uses to enable the management of fixed assets and to trace the entire life cycle of fixed assets. From the moment an asset is purchased in a company, business, or industry, until that asset is retired, the system is based on analysis regarding failures and the value that asset may have within the corporation or company.

Concrete examples of projects or clients where I implemented Hexagon EAM to manage the life cycle of fixed assets include many organizations. In Chile, there are large clients such as Cencosud, which is a company at a continental level dedicated to retail, and for them I implemented Hexagon for the maintenance of the buildings and infrastructure they have. I have also implemented Hexagon in the mining sector, in the Santiago Metro, and in many other organizations.

I would like to add that I was working on the implementation and support for a company here that is in charge of Chile's ports and also has ports in other South American countries, and with them I conducted an assessment to handle maintenance and support for everything related to Hexagon EAM. I also did this with a multinational company in Peru, Inkia Corporate, which was dedicated to power generation. With them I worked on implementations in Peru, Nicaragua, Jamaica, and several countries in the Southern Cone.

The best functionalities that Hexagon EAM offers include the particularity that it is a web application and lately it is a cloud implementation, so it is no longer necessary to have local infrastructure in order to operate the system. You just need to purchase licenses and you can operate directly through its cloud platform, and all the clients are doing that and many are currently migrating to it. One of the things that differentiates Hexagon EAM from other platforms is that it is a modular system that allows you to modify and configure it for any type of client and adapt it to their processes. In this case, it is not rigid like other systems in which basically the client has to adapt to each of the platforms. Here, I adapt to the client and obviously I also execute and enforce best practices.

Modularity and customization have benefited several of my clients, and the best part is that you can design, for example, the entire user interface so that the user feels comfortable with what they are seeing on the screen and with the information they are receiving. That way they are not flooded with information that is not valuable to them and that sometimes creates a lot of noise for the end user. Being able to develop all of that plus the internal controls that you can do quickly in the system, using SQL for that, makes it very user-friendly and allows it to be configured better and in a more reliable way for the client.

Hexagon EAM has positively impacted the organizations where I have implemented it, as the implementation of this type of system is precisely to impact costs and reduce the maintenance cost of companies. I can mention some companies that can have up to a 30% reduction in scheduled annual maintenance, which ultimately results in a valuable cost reduction for the company. The availability of each of the pieces of equipment and the prevention of breakdowns in the system for production is what makes this type of tool very valuable within companies.

Hexagon EAM is always being improved, as it has a lab and has a pool of people who are always developing and improving the application based especially on the requirements and requests made by the users themselves and the clients themselves. When they request some improvement or some application, the system is improved, and each time a new version comes out, those requirements that the clients themselves are making are being addressed. It is dynamic, which is the good part. It is not something that will remain the same. The system is constantly being updated, so the client is normally receiving everything new that is in the system and in current technology, such as AI, for example.

The platform, as I mentioned, is cloud-based and can also be implemented on-premise, but it is every day being further enhanced and resolving all the problems that might be encountered through implementations at clients, so there is a permanent continuous improvement of the system.

I have been working in this field for more than 20 years.

I consider Hexagon EAM to be a stable solution, as it is a solution that has persisted over time, even though its name has already changed several times, but it is a solution where every client that adopts it and reaches a stage of stability can then see the effects and the usefulness that the system provides to the client.

I would rate the scalability of Hexagon EAM as very high, as it can grow very quickly with clients' demands, in such a way that it is easy to integrate it with other systems such as CRM or within each of the industries, or to integrate it with systems such as expert controls, like SCADA, for example. Hexagon EAM has the particularity of growing through all the potential it has with its modules and of being a technology that, besides that, has a lot to integrate. It has a whole system of APIs and web services that also allows each of the clients to obtain both read and write information.

My experience with Hexagon's customer support is positive, as Hexagon has a good level of support with 24/7 support, which allows every client who has a question to contact support directly, and support opens a ticket that is resolved as soon as possible. I would rate customer support on a scale from 1 to 10 as a 9, as support can always be improved.

My consulting firm did not use any other solution before Hexagon EAM, as we come from the world of Infor EAM. Therefore, it is something we have known for years and that is why we went straight as a consulting firm to work with Hexagon EAM, now Octap, and we have not had any other product than Hexagon EAM as our system for implementation.

When I implement Hexagon EAM through my organization, I check with the client before closing the sale where it will be implemented. If it will be on-premise, locally, then we go and implement Hexagon EAM directly on the client's servers so that they have all the functionality that Hexagon EAM offers on their local network. In the other case, if the client prefers to go to the cloud, in this case they would be contracting the cloud services of the system. For that, we have an address that Hexagon EAM gives us with three environments and we arrange that in each environment we have a production environment, a development environment, and a testing environment. We implement in each of those environments, first starting with the development environment and then moving to the production environment and doing the system go-live, which would be in the production environment. Those would be the two functionalities and the two ways to implement it.

I have observed a clear return on investment after implementing Hexagon EAM, as these systems do not tend to reduce staff; rather, they tend to optimize staff and optimize time. In terms of cost reduction, there is quite a lot that can be done. With a system of this type you can achieve up to a 30% cost reduction, therefore I would see cost reductions more at the company level in terms of what has to be invested in maintenance, while keeping the same staff so that sometimes you can even hire more staff because this also demands a bit more administrative activity to manage each of the systems.

Regarding my experience with pricing, installation costs, and licensing of Hexagon EAM, since it is a cloud-based system, these prices actually go down quite a bit compared to an on-premise installation, where the client has to have everything necessary for the implementation, in this case mainly servers, which they have to incur expenses for. Therefore, in terms of costs it is very convenient for a client to go to the cloud. Going to the cloud means that the data is obviously in the cloud and not at the client's locations, so there are clients who prefer in this case to invest a bit more and do it on-premise so that their data is always and remains theirs. That is something the client has to examine and discuss before we can implement, more in the pre-sales phase of the product.

I did not evaluate other options on the market before choosing Hexagon EAM, as we did not consider the possibility of moving to Maximo.

Hexagon EAM belongs to Octap and Octap has several systems that allow you to incorporate into Hexagon EAM the functionality to integrate them and to be able to further enhance what Hexagon EAM is. I think that is the functionality and the potential that Hexagon EAM has to be implemented within clients and in any type of industry.

My advice to others who are considering implementing Hexagon EAM is to implement it, that it is a good product, that it is a product totally adaptable to each of the clients' needs, that it has a lot of potential to grow if they finally want to get the most out of it. Normally these world-class platforms, like Hexagon EAM, are implemented, I would say, at a very low percentage compared to what they really have to offer. I would say that this percentage does not go beyond 40% of what Hexagon EAM can really deliver. But if the client wants a good system, a system that responds and does not have problems in either infrastructure or availability, they can adopt it and they will not have any problem with it.

I would like to share that Hexagon EAM is a good product, it is a world-class product, it is implemented in many countries around the world. It has many years of development and is very well established, therefore it is a good product. It is not a product that was made recently, so it has a great history, it has a great company behind it and a good team that will be able to help with whatever the client wants and whatever the client needs. I would rate Hexagon EAM as one of the best in this niche, which is EAM, and I am giving this review an overall rating of 10.