How to choose APM software for power equipment.

What APM software does.

Asset performance management (APM) software watches the condition of equipment, predicts what’s likely to fail and helps teams decide what to fix first.

It sits between the systems that run each site, like SCADA, and the systems that manage the work, like a CMMS. For power equipment, the job is simple to say: catch the slow drift before the trip, and get someone out to fix it.

Why power equipment is different.

Most predictive maintenance grew up on vibration in factories. Power fleets have their own problems.

• A dozen brands. Inverters, batteries and relays from different manufacturers, some installed decades ago.
• Many protocols. BACnet, Modbus, DNP3, IEC 61850, SNMP and historians, often at the same site.
• Different failures. Hot spots, cooling faults, cell imbalance and breaker wear show up in temperatures, currents and event records.
• Remote sites. Hours from the nearest technician, and some with no network at all.
• Strict security. Utility and critical networks have rules about what can connect, and NERC CIP covers many of them.

The right tool handles all of this, from the oldest unit to the site with no network.

Five kinds of tools.

Most teams use several. The question is which gaps are left.

10 questions to ask every vendor.

Ask each vendor the same questions, in writing. Then put the answers side by side.

1. Which of our equipment can you read today?

   Send your equipment list and ask for an answer line by line: make, model, age and protocol. Ask what happens with the units they can’t read yet.

2. Do we need new hardware?

   Get it in writing: what each site needs, who installs it, and what happens at sites with no network.

3. How does it decide something is wrong?

   Fixed limits miss slow drift and fire on hot days. Look for a baseline learned for each unit, adjusted for load and weather.

4. How many alerts will our team actually get?

   Moving the alarm flood to a new screen solves nothing. Ask them to prove it on your data during a pilot.

5. What happens after an alert?

   You want a case with the likely cause, the part and the unit’s history, sent to whoever fixes it, in the tool or in your CMMS.

6. How is it secured?

   Outbound-only and encrypted. Read-only by default. Every session logged. Written documentation your security team can review, including NERC CIP where it applies.

7. How long until it’s live, and what do you need from us?

   Projects usually slip on integration and security reviews. Ask for a dated plan that says who does what.

8. Who will we actually work with?

   Unusual controllers and one-off sites are where projects stall. You want named engineers who will build the missing connections.

9. Which features use AI, and what do the models actually do?

   “AI-powered” can mean anything. Ask what the models learn from, whether they build a baseline for each unit, and how your data is used.

10. How is it priced, and what grows the cost?

    Per asset, per site and per data point behave very differently as a fleet grows. Ask what’s included and what would raise the bill.

How to run a 90-day pilot.

A pilot should prove it works on your equipment, with your team, against a problem you already have.

1. Pick one to three sites.

   Ideally with more than one brand of equipment and a problem you already feel: repeat trips, alarm noise or wasted truck rolls.

2. Start the security review on day one.

   It’s usually the longest step, so run it alongside the technical work.

3. Connect and build a baseline.

   Models need history to learn normal. Ask whether the vendor can backfill from your historian.

4. Agree what success means up front.

   Faults caught before a trip, alarms nobody has to clear, truck rolls avoided, time to find the cause.

5. Review real cases every week.

   Sit down with the vendor’s engineers, go through what was flagged and what happened next, and tune it to your team.

Comparing vendors.

We’ve compared 42Hz with the tools buyers ask about most. Everything about each company comes from its own website, with sources and the date we checked.

Where 42Hz fits.

42Hz is APM built for power and HVAC equipment. It reads what you already run, from any manufacturer, builds digital twins where the use case calls for them, and turns real faults into cases with the cause and the part. Our engineers do the setup with yours. See how it works for battery storage, solar inverters, transformers, ups systems and relays and switchgear.