The Asset Journal, Volume 14, Issue 4
Asset Management is a social activity – it cannot be done in isolation, it requires all parts of an Asset owning Organisation to work together. Asset management is the process of planning and controlling the acquisition, operation, maintenance, renewal, and disposal of assets, thereby extracting most value form those Assets. It is therefore not surprising that we on the one hand recognise the advantages of an Asset Management system, but on the other hand often see confusion about the way this is to be achieved. Is this the domain of Leadership to unify and align the various parts of an organisation? Does a senior Leadership team have the insight and qualification to direct the organisation in the development of a coherent Asset Management System? Or does the organisational culture promote Leadership in all levels of the organisation to achieve the best outcome in Asset Management?
In recent discussions with UK based organisations it became clear to me that there is still confusion about how an organisation actually sustains an Asset Management system that delivers the best outcomes. Early adopters have now seen a degradation of their system and obfuscation of early clear messages and their meaning. I guess a part of this might be the transition from ‘traditional’ (mostly manual) forms of dealing with the aspects of managing Assets to digital Asset Management. Software solutions offer more and more insights in how teams, departments, individuals and Assets systems perform by automating against some rules the information generated by data collected.
One of the principles of Asset Management is to know what an organisation owns and what the condition of the Assets is. This directly should relate the Asset’s performance to the risk to the overall outcome and the associated cost. Is it enough to use data analytics to arrive at information that enables us to make good decisions? Or do we need to retain and strengthen the framework for Asset Management through continued education, especially as we see a gradual handover to a new generation that also expects a different way of working and has not been exposed to the historic (more paper based methodologies) way of managing organisations.
The strategic view of an Asset Management System and how an organisation needs to sustain the not inconsiderable investment of creating an organisational compliance with the leadership, cultural and competency aspects of the ISO 55001 is required, to make the Asset Management journey sustainable. What would that require apart from the revolution of digital Asset Management and using data models to manage assets? Line of sight between Business objectives and the delivery of these objectives should be embedded in all teams that are involved with assets, regardless whether they are technical, financial, personnel or IT. We are interested to hear this edition about your organisational challenges in Asset Management and hear about your ways of overcoming the hurdles and improve your Asset Management System. I trust that the articles in this edition of “The Asset” will provide some stimulants for your organisation.
On behalf of the whole Asset Management Council team, we wish you a happy and safe Christmas season and a successful year 2021.
Ernst Krauss
Editor in Chief
theasset@amcouncil.com.au
