I have just been to the 30 year celebration of the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) in London, where we also marked ten years of ISO 55000. This was held jointly with the Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management (GFMAM) – representing AM and AM-minded maintenance societies worldwide – with representatives from IPWEA and the Asset Management Council. A time to reflect as well as celebrate!
Russ Seiler of Grant Public Utility District (one of the Columbia River hydro utilities in the Pacific North West) reflected on his journey since 2016. Starting from scratch as an Asset Management lead, under Russ the team at Grant has looked at asset inventory, Wave 1, and the absence of basic asset data. It then focused on the AM ‘system’, as in ISO 55000, and the idea of building AM artefacts. (Wave one-and-a-half?) But, encouraged by Penny’s 2023 book on the beginnings of AM, he realised that neither were really the point.
His conclusion after seven years? “If your asset management program never affects the money being spent on assets, your program should and will be terminated.” AM creates the machine that produces the plan, a better plan for the assets. Everything else is just a means to that end.
It’s the AMP process, ok.
I have trained many 1000s in the last 14 years, in the USA and elsewhere. And that’s what I have found, too. Too many get caught up in asset data – which is important, sure – and documents such as the AM Policy and SAMP, which are also important. But that is never what Penny meant by Asset Management.
And ‘plan’ doesn’t just mean what proactive maintenance you should do, or what you need to spend capital on to sustain your existing asset base. It’s also what if any new infrastructure we require. It’s whole of life and system-wide. It’s big.
Have we been tinkering at the edges while the world changes around us?
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