From which micro-services did we develop the new enterprise asset management?

August, 2022 – We are deploying our new solution for asset management in the Trnava water company. It will help water operators make operations more transparent and, over time, collect management data like the Trnava road workers have been doing for years.

The new solution is built on our platform for electronic services, yAgenda. It consists of several modules, with each module being an independent micro-service. “We began with warehouse management and converted all warehouse processes into digital. We introduced automatic pricing on the average price and FIFO principle. Handout documents are signed electronically with the option of closing the document when the entire material-dependent task is completed. We connected to external systems from which we draw technical and economic data so the module output is a detailed overview of which materials are actually used from the warehouse on which tasks, with what costs,” opens the topic of the new system for TAVOS project manager, Tomáš Mišovič.

Warehouse management is the first of four modules that the client chose. The next step is to create modules for transport, approval processes for orders, and procurement, as well as an entry screen that unifies the entire system. Since the goal is to monitor operational events in TAVOS from different points of view, a well-thought-out categorization of resources and data runs in the background. “For example, a vehicle is a cost center, an asset, and a resource item at the same time. This illuminates and documents all the financial and operational actions related to the vehicle, i.e. its operational costs including services and insurance, how it is actually used, on which work orders, which users handle it, and the like. The result of such an analysis of resources and assets is a bulletproof managerial overview, which will change into a source of real data for improving operations over time,” explains Tomáš Mišovič.

The system for TAVOS will be literally “pumped” with everything that managers like to monitor. The transportation module will be, for example, enriched with the location of vehicles on a map, the so-called map plug-in. “We will supplement data from external sensors so we know everything about the vehicle, including where it is located and how much gas it has,” continues Tomáš Mišovič. The approval processes include all types of procurement operations, from the simplest purchases without the need for approval to large public procurements requiring multiple bidders, multi-stage approval, and an electronic signature from the general director.

We used micro-services not only on modules but on other important functions as well. Logging users into the system according to job classifications, creating automatic reports, and a map server are also independent micro-services. This means, among other things, that they are independent of the system as a whole, scalable to the required load, duplicable to increase reliability, and modifiable without shutting down other parts of the system. All this increases performance, security, and reliability, and potentially, the client might not even notice potential outages or reboots.