Asset Management, the beginning, pt 2.

Photo by Alexandru Dinca from Pexels

“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see” Winston Churchill

Until around 1996 the terms ‘Asset Management’ and ‘Strategic Asset Management’ were practically synonymous.  But with the increasing popularity of the term ‘Asset Management’ to describe a wide variety of activities, as described in Pt 1, there was a need for a term that could differentiate decision making from the doing so, in  January 1999, when the Asset Management Quarterly became fortnightly and thus needed a name change, I chose “Strategic Asset Management”, popularly known as SAM.

This was to stress that Asset Management wasn’t maintenance and reliability, or capital acquisition, or Treasury asset sales or many of the other associated activities, but rather what later became known (in ISO 55,000) as ‘the alignment of asset activities with the goals and objecitves of the organisation’   

The first issue of SAM, January 1999, explained the name change, and in doing so, focused on what differentiates asset management from what went before.

The real key to being strategic is where you focus your attention. If you focus on what you are doing you are carrying out an operational task; if you focus on how you are doing it, seeking to ‘tweak it’ or do it better, then you are engaged in a tactical activity. Both of these are necessary and important. However, they are not strategic. The strategic task is the one that focuses on the outcome, or the purpose….What constitutes a ‘better’ outcome, however, is not for the maintenance manager to decide. A ‘better’ outcome is one that moves the agency in the direction of its strategic vision.   

By way of illustration, take the construction of a new hospital. If the questions you are asking yourself are ‘what is the purpose of this new hospital; what needs are we providing for, should we be providing them or should they be provided by others, or should they not be provided at all; is a new hospital required or are there better means?’, then you are focussing on the outcomes – ie being strategic.

Asking yourself ‘should this construction be carried out as a ‘design-construct’, ‘build-own-operate’ or some other form of contract’ is asking tactical questions. If you ask ‘how do I ensure this construction comes in within time and budget and is of the right quality’ then you are engaged in an operational task.

Thus ‘Strategic’ is not the same as ‘Important’.  ALL aspects of asset management are important.”

In January 2014, the first international standard in asset management, ISO 55,000 was launched, and with this, we came to the end of the beginning of Asset Management.  No longer a novelty, a new-comer; Asset management arrived.

For What Happened Next see: AM – The third wave

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