The Asset Journal, Volume 14, Issue 3
Have you thought about the Systems governing your Organisation? Is the System providing guidance to achieving Value and outcomes that your Team is setting out to deliver and in turn does the Organisation deliver the Value expected by Stakeholders? A System is meant to provide a framework that enables the desired outcomes to be delivered, targets to be met and most of all, support Value creation. The Asset Management System described in the ISO 55001 Standards is just such a framework.
It describes the System elements that, when appropriately balanced, will enable this achievement. Of course, we need to consider how in a larger Organisation it is more difficult to realise the System based outcomes. When we look at Government, Systems face many obstacles and barriers, be they societal, political, environmental, or technological. I am sure you can think of many more barriers that Government faces and closer to Home, the Organisation you work for that influence the efficiency of Systems.
Balancing the priorities of managing through Systems the cost – risk – performance expectations (the Value generation process) depends on the System supporting processes. In a recent Asset Management System analysis in a small Water Supply Organisation, we found that approximately 120 processes are required to manage Organisation and Assets. That reached from the Executive Management level right to the Worker level. We identified that there were many more sub-processes required to support the main processes and make them sustainable. Often this complexity is intended to be simplified through Technology which now matured into highly responsive platforms that can tell us in very small time increments what happens in our Assets and how well Systems and processes (including administration) function. The future will judge how well we can manage these responsive analyses through traditional Systems management, that typically has a significant level of inertia.
Adapting Systems to that new reality requires not only agility in thinking, but also application of agile Systems, Planning and Delivery. My personal observation is that only few Government, Business or Organisational Systems allow strategic flexibility, adjusting to changed markets or service requirements efficiently.
The question is, can your Business or Organisation sustain inefficiencies that inevitably exist in any System and continue to miss optimum Value creation? The uncertain future of traditional economic principles and the disruption we have experienced to working in remote ways, could be your trigger to revise the way your Organisation and Systems operate and revise the efficiency of the embedded Systems and processes to achieve higher Value outcomes and associated Benefits. In this Volume of the “The Asset”, we bring you some articles about Value and Benefits of Systems, that may create some idea for discussion and improvements in your Asset Management System. As always, we value your feedback and discussion on these topics.
Ernst Krauss
Editor in Chief
theasset@amcouncil.com.au
