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Improving the Delivery of Asset Management across the
Enterprise
R. A Platfoot*
*Covaris, PO Box 3456 Bankstown Square NSW Australia
r.plat{[email protected]
Keywords: asset management, organisational design, information
systems, maintenance strategy, reliability
Abstract
This paper sets out a methodology for the asset management
transformation of a complex organisation operating multiple sites
and extensive fleets of physical assets. The approach is based on
PAS 55:2008 and ISO 55000 specifications for an asset management
system. Case study material is utilised to draw out specific
approaches for applying the techniques to deliver tangible
performance improvement throughout the organisation and in
particular to service delivery groups. The foundation elements
include defining and communicating a clear strategy, aligning the
organisation with asset management service delivery and the use of
information to optImIse decision making about work delivery and
investments in the assets themselves.
1 Introduction
The publication of PAS 55:2008 [1] presented a means to balance
between management principles and technical services to deliver
greater surety in improving asset management. The Specification was
successful in promoting risk management to optimise decision
making. While ISO 55000 [2] has differences in content and layout,
it retained the concept of the goals of an asset management policy
being achieved by meeting measureable objectives outlined or
documented in an asset management strategy. It was interesting to
note that ISO 55000 recognised issues with terminology where a
plain English term could be misinterpreted and hence for example,
what strategy meant for one person would mean something different
to another. Without clarity on what the elements which make up
asset management meant, the prescriptions in such specifications
cannot be guaranteed to be implemented.
In this work we applied ISO 55000 as the senior document but
incorporated substantial material specific to PAS 55:2008 which
provided a more rounded approach to delivering enterprise level
asset management. Other authoritative material has been helpful [3]
(eg other ISO standards, government agency asset management manuals
etc) but we were concerned with changes in interpretation of the
asset management terminology outside of ISO 55000. The key
elements of this interpretation of the asset management system
are found in Figure 1.
ISO 55000/PAS 55 outline an approach that once the objectives
for asset management are determined, stakeholders across multiple
functions need to work together on appropriate plans to determine
future work. These plans are based on condition assessments and
historical trends of lifelimiting issues. The issues are then risk
assessed for priorities and consolidated to specify future work and
hence budgets. Enabling the determination of these plans and then
assuring their delivery is where the hard work arises and is the
subject of this paper.
To get to the point that roles are confirmed, information is
gathered and utilised, and plans can then be made requires many
aspects of the enterprise to be in place and working. ISO 55000/PAS
55 provide a comprehensive check list of cultural, technical and
business aspects which have to combine and assist with delivering
the improvement process, [4]. The key aspects addressed in this
work include:
The organisation has to know its assets; A competent and well
communicated preventive
maintenance strategy is needed to drive out waste in the routine
work;
Condition assessments and reliability trends have to be
processed to provide essential data;
Technical support across engineering, projects and supply has to
be focused on a critical few items which represent the priorities;
and
The performance of maintenance, projects and operations teams
needs to be precise and hold them accountable for both
effectiveness and cost efficiencies.
An important driver for investment and managing the life cycle
of assets is the asset management plan, [5]. In this approach the
plan is not an extensive document but the repository of output from
reports, analyses and studies which is combined to identify and
justify optimal work. The plan is a statement of what has to be
done on the assets, why, the priority, when and so forth. This is a
literal interpretation of ISO 55000/PAS 55 and means the plan is a
dynamic, continually updated register of information utilised by
multiple stakeholders as they work together.
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Business Plan
Asset Management Policy
External Audit
Asset Management Objectives
Strategic Asset Ma nagement Plan Internal Audit
Scope of Asset Portfolio
Asset Management Plan
Organisational Design
Risk Management
Information Systems
Continuous Improvement
Asset Management Enablers
Define Budget Standard Review
Stakeholder Management
Change Management
Outsourcing
Awareness
Maintenance Asset Management
Sustainment
Figure 1 Asset Management System (an interpretation ofISO 55000
with supplemental material from PAS 55)
2 The asset management organisation
The size and complexity of organisations obviously vary from
modest sized businesses up to national and international
enterprises with layers of governance and work delivery.
Irrespective of size, asset management needs a precise set of
functions to be delivered and will falter if any of these are not
effectively supported, [6]. An outline of these functions and their
linkages is provided in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Organisational Functions for Asset Management
Work on the assets is delivered by the Maintenance and Project
teams (who may be external contractors) and is in participation
with the Operations teams. If the assets are badly established,
maintained or operated, no asset management approach will ensure
delivery of the goals of the asset management policy. The asset
management organisation needs additional teams in place to support
these people and set them up for success.
In order for assets to be operated and maintained correctly,
systems need to be set up, forward work planned ahead, materials
and resources made available etc, [8]. Hence
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Projects and Planning groups are required to ensure that actual
work undertaken is planned and scheduled to be as efficient as
possible. Supply groups benefit by maximising forward lead times
for ordering.
Performance and Improvement is essential as a broad but shallow
capability to handle the feedback from maintenance, operations and
projects. This is a critical function for continuous improvement
with the skills sets required including data competence,
reliability monitoring and condition appraisals. What can confuse
the role specified for this group is to also lump in design-based
reliability assessment techniques which are more in the province of
the subject matter experts in Engineering.
Engineering experts represent people with design expertise, i.e.
narrow and deep knowledge of the assets and able to resolve a small
number of problems but taking some time to complete such work owing
to the complexities they deal with. They are also the holders of
the technical standards for the assets which must be observed in
order for the enterprise to legally operate, [7].
In the commercial arena there is a need for the asset-focused
elements of the organisation (i.e. those on the left had side of
Figure 2) to engage with the marketing or trading arm who control
the actual output of the entire enterprise (and for example earn
the actual revenue or deliver the corporate mission). Trading and
Marketing need advice on risks in the assets which will prevent
them from committing to positions which are exposed due to
reliability or capacity constraints. They can also interpret plant
losses into loss revenue, providing cost data essential for
optimising investments in the future
In one asset management review the capability of a base load
power station was tested in the area of asset life cycle
management.
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5.3.10: Incidenl Response (24( '!;-
5_3_9: Shutdown & Outage _. -" .. . .5_3_11: Asset
Rationalisation Managemen1(15r 'l\nd Disposal (34(
! 5_3.8 Resource Management /
(640('
5.3.6: Reliability Enginee1
\\, \
\ 5.3_2: Asset Creation ;and Acquisition (30)
5_3.5: Maintenance Delivery (1083(
Figure 3 Asset Management Audit - Life Cycle Functions
The criteria for the audit was based on ISO 55000 and what was
tested was not only the function defined for a role, but whether
the role worked well with other teams to deliver an effective
result. The enterprise studied was very capable in delivering
incident response (a score of 4). But it was held back by poor
maintenance delivery owing to lack of planning, poor configuration
control (i.e. specifying the assets and their maintenance
strategy), all of which was aligned with a breakdown with the
projects team who created assets in the first place.
The enterprise were professional in delivering asset operations
but with a lack of reliability support they were limited in how
they could improve and deliver a more profitable, sustainable
business. The organisational deficiencies stemmed from significant
gaps in their top level approach to asset management which is shown
in the next set of results.
5.1.1: Asset Management Policy (81( 5".
5.1.5: Asset Management _,/ 5.1.2: Asset Management Plans (90
Objectives (85]
514: Strategic Plan'l\n
/
5.1.3: Demand Analysis (10]
/" 5.1.2: Asset Management / ' Strategy (t 09]
Figure 4 Asset Management Audit - Top Level Controls
While this enterprise had been in business for many years with
long term experienced personnel, they had not right set their
organisational design or processes owing to a lack of goals
specified in an asset management policy and unclear objectives
which had yet to be tidied into a cohesive asset management
strategy. Elements of strategy and plans were
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present (scored at 2/5) but were not aligned since there was no
effective policy.
Immediate improvement steps included an asset management policy,
a risk management standard to prioritise asset management decision
making, reset of the reliability organisation and improved
processes in work planning. These steps coupled with the natural
capability and expertise of the team were expected to right set how
their organisation worked and as an integrated team, came together
to deliver asset management.
3 Asset management planning
Staying with the case study introduced above and where they
needed to improve their approach to asset management planning, the
following audit extract (again based on criteria found in the
Specifications) points to essential requirements of the plan.
Is there an asset management plan (24) s-
can be demonstrated bySt1j tar .
The AMP is reviewed / [BI'.
Resources are enabled to deliver AMP-specified tasks (91
!
The AMPs are optimised [91
AMP takes into account li,fe cycle activities [11]
\, \
\ The AMP is communicated to stakeholders [8]
The AMP has clear tasks [9[
The AMP sets out who is responsible for delivering tasks 18]
Figure 5 Asset Management Audit - Asset Management Plans
As the criteria indicates, the plan must be reviewed and is
dynamic to specify the tasks which are then prioritised for the
future. To enable this the reliability team in the case study had
to be reset to ensure correct information was entering the plan to
justify the right tasks which would need support and investment. In
this section we now consider what an asset management plan consists
of.
Figure 6 presents an overview of how work is generated and then
managed in an asset management context. The reliability team is
required to interpret the work completed each month and, along with
other stakeholders, feedback continuous improvement which will
update either the asset management plans or the routine PM
strategy, [8]. In this figure the value of the asset management
plan is that it drives not just work, but work which will
continually improve the enterprise.
An example to show what is required in establishing and then
utilising an asset management plan which meets the specific
criteria set out in ISO 55000 and PAS 55 is provided from recent
work completed in a national transmission authority.
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Asset ManaBement
Spending reviewt.IPlanned Actual Spend}
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effectiveness of current projects and maintenance work in
remediation, [9].
An issue is typically defined with such detail that the risk to
the enterprise is clearly defined and validated by evidence. There
has to be absolute confidence in this process to enable the [mal
requests for funding to be on a firm footing, allowing senior
management to make trade-offs between available funds and risks to
the business.
An example for defining such an issue is provided below for a
gantry footing. This demonstrates the need for an issue to be
tightly specified to an asset or set of assets, rather than a top
level concern.
Edit Issue Number 11 (New)
- ...
L I PENPervns.e
a) Registering an issue
---....
- --== =:.....': .... --:= UMfI_2'IO ........... __ ..
::::::--.::...'"'=' .. IUIIl :::.....-=r..:.. _",,-,,_ __
! ='':'l =-=-_ =.-=:=-t u.J_.. __ ...-.-- ..... ....,
>IIH/II ::';'-::::;::.U =-.::::::::=:... _ ......... -.. -
--) b) Risk ranking an issue
Figure 8 Defining an Issue in the Asset Management Plan
One or more proposals for work may be needed to fully resolve an
issue. In the case study example, such solutions were drawn from
the following possibilities:
Remedial work proposed for specific assets; Enterprise-wide
campaigns of like work on similar
assets; Preventive maintenance improvement; Root cause analysis
studies; or Major investigations requiring investment.
A proposal of work needed clear objectives and demonstrable
benefits, had to be allocated to someone, had an estimated
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cost and was risk assessed to ascertain how much of the original
risk in the underlying issues would be resolved.
There are numerous benefits with this approach but probably the
key ones appreciated by asset owners include:
Clear list of possible investment which is risk prioritised and
justified in detail;
Visibility of the mix between local improvement and remote
support from corporate groups; and
The ability to hold budget decisions accountable where if
funding was cut, the implications for the enterprise in terms of
risk could be quantified.
Another important aspect of this approach and which relates to
earlier material in this paper is the need to support communication
between multiple stakeholders based in different teams. While for
example reliability engineers can identify and record issues, [10],
operations and maintenance would like to validate the priorities.
Engineers and subject matter experts need to be involved in forming
proposed solutions, and planning teams need to look at the overall
portfolio and the timing of possible work.
The portfolio approach is shown in the example below.
Projects
VI'" 1 15 "r 1
Attached Solutions
1. __ -
Figure 9 Portfolio Report for the Asset Management Plan
Groups of proposed tasks (Solutions) are consolidated into
portfolios or Projects which can extend over multiple years as
individual tasks commence at different times. There are obvious
purchasing advantages with project consolidation as well as
allowing time for busy delivery teams to stage their work.
The question should be asked: why does the asset management plan
as a process change the enterprise and improve its overall approach
to asset management? There are several aspects to the answer:
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With an asset management plan in place, information is not lost
and the organisation does not lose sight of key problems which may
fail at some time in the future;
Because multiple stakeholders are involved from problem
identification, solution, funding and final resolution, it is
beneficial for them to have a common focus to track this work;
and
The asset management plan delivers surety in the investment
needed to enable work that will mean assets will deliver the
capability expected of them by the enterprise.
The asset management plan will only work if the organisation
within the enterprise understands the specific roles of teams and
how they should work with each other to a common goal as specified
in the asset management policy.
4 Conclusion
This paper cannot explore all aspects of an asset management
system appropriate for the modem enterprise, and hence focused on
the organisation and how different stakeholders can work together
for a common purpose. The framework of the approach is based on the
definitions of an asset management system which are found in
different but related key documents: ISO 55000 and PAS 55:2008.
Asset management is necessarily an amalgam of organisational
design, information, process and culture, and nowhere is this more
readily shown that the sometimes extended process to resolve
complex problems with the assets. The example provided in this
paper was the use of an asset management plan to identify issues by
a reliability team who are monitoring the outcomes of operations
and maintenance. Prioritising the issues requires risk assessment
involving the operations and maintenance people most familiar with
the assets. Resolving the problems may call in subject matter
experts or can be left to reliability practitioners to undertake
further investigation. The timing of any work and its attendant
investment, plus converting a proposal of work into a detailed plan
requires specialist planning support.
What brings the different stakeholders together is a sense of
common purpose listed as goals in an asset management policy which
covers the whole of the enterprise. To meet these goals measureable
objectives should be set, some of which are the responsibility of
one team and others the responsibility of someone else. The
strategy is cohesive since the objectives are established so that
they are reinforcing of each other rather than contradictory.
The enterprise will know when its organisation is right set and
the strategy is appropriate to deliver safe, reliable and durable
assets when it is getting on top of its long standing problems.
This is the process best addressed by an asset management plan, and
this paper proposes a literal interpretation of the many suggested
attributes for such plans as found in ISO 55000 and PAS 55
combined. These resources tend to be
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reinforce each other where gaps in either can be addressed in
the alternative document. Other authoritative sources on asset
management should be respected and are very helpful in rounding out
an appreciation of the discipline, but as ISO 55000 commits space
pointing out, clarity in the terminology and defming each element
of the asset management system is important to ensure multiple
stakeholders understand a common approach.
Acknowledgements
This work has been funded by various Australian and NZ
organisations as well as Covaris research. The author acknowledges
contributors from multiple organisations as well as his colleagues
in Covaris.
References
[1] BSI PAS 55-2 2008 Asset Management [2] ISO 55000: 2014 Asset
Management [3] Guide to Asset Management, Part 5A: Inventory,
AUSTROADS, 2009. [4] AMBOK Companion Guide to ISO 55001, Asset
Management Council (Aust). 2014. [5] The New Asset Management
Handbook, Reliabilityweb.com, 2014. [6] J R Lafraia & J
Hardwick, Living Asset Management, E A Books, 2013. [7] de Azevedo,
C. Using Asset Management methods
during the industrial plant design phase. The Asset J vol. 6,
Asset Management Council (Aust). 2012. [8] R A Platfoot.
"Integrating Asset Management with Work Delivery and Continuous
Improvement", 8th WCEAM Hong Kong, 2014. [9] D.J. Smith,
Reliability Maintainability and Risk,
8ed, Butterworth Heinemann 201l. [10] R A Platfoot. "Practical
Analytics for Maintenance
Teams Using CMMS Work History", Aust. J MultiDisciplinary Eng.,
vol. 11 2014.