Asset & Instrumentation Management System (AIMS)

The foundation for digital and autonomous process plants

The ongoing digitalisation of the process industry, coupled with the increasing level of autonomy in plant operations, is placing new and significantly greater demands on the management of assets throughout their entire lifecycle. A comprehensive Asset & Instrumentation Management System (AIMS) is an indispensable tool for this purpose and provides a central foundation for the safe, efficient and sustainable operation of process plants.

An asset management framework must be capable of consistently recording, managing and monitoring assets in functional safety environments as well as assets outside safety-critical applications. The scope of this covers everything from traditional field devices and automation components to IT/OT assets and their configurations. Particularly in the context of safety-critical systems, the highest standards of availability, traceability and data integrity must be met.

With the increasing interconnection of plant components, the demands on OT security and software security are also rising significantly. An asset management framework must therefore incorporate security-by-design principles and comply with both regulatory and normative requirements. In addition to protection against unauthorised access, issues such as patch management, version control, role and rights management, and secure communication between the systems involved also play a crucial role.
 

Furthermore, a modern asset management framework should not be viewed in isolation, but must be capable of integrating seamlessly into existing and future architectures. Interfaces with other concepts and initiatives, such as NAMUR Open Architecture (NOA) or the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), are essential to enable consistent information availability across all levels of the automation pyramid. Only in this way can added value such as condition-based maintenance, predictive maintenance or automated decision-making processes be realised.

Against this backdrop, the NAMUR ad hoc working group ‘Requirements for an Asset & Instrument Management System’ was established. The aim of the working group is to systematically record and consolidate the diverse requirements from the end-user’s perspective. The working group is deliberately composed of members from different NAMUR working groups to ensure a holistic approach and to take both technical and organisational aspects into account appropriately.

The work focuses, among other things, on the following areas:

• Definition of the scope and boundaries of an asset management framework
• Concepts for device and asset management throughout the entire lifecycle
• Requirements for communication interfaces and data models
• Cross-layer communication within the plant architecture
• OT security requirements and protection concepts
• Software security and update strategies
• Consideration of safety aspects and regulatory requirements