Improving the Delivery of Asset Management across the

Enterprise
R. A

Platfoot*

*Covaris, PO Box 3456 Bankstown Square NSW Australia r.plat{oot@covaris.com.au

Keywords:

asset

management,

organisational

design,

elements of this interpretation of the asset management

system are found in Figure 1.

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

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 life
limiting 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.

Business

Asset Management

Plan

Policy

External Audit

Asset Management

Strategic Asset

Objectives

Ma nagement Plan

Scope of Asset

Asset Management

Portfolio

Plan

Organisational

Internal Audit

Standard Review

Define Budget

Design
Stakeholder
Management

Risk M anagement

Ch ange Mana gement

Information Systems
Outsourcing

Continuous
Improvement

Awareness

Asset Management
Enablers

Asset Management
Maintenance

Sustainment

Figure 1 Asset Management System (an interpretation ofISO 55000 with supplemental material from PAS 55)

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.

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.

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].

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 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 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

In one asset management review the capability of a base load

power station was tested in the area of asset life cycle
management.

Figure 2 Organisational Functions for Asset Management

present (scored at 2/5) but were not aligned since there was
no effective policy.

5.3.10: Incidenl Response (24(

'!;.
. .5_3_11: Asset Rationalisation
5_3_9: Shutdown & Outage _. -" .
'l\nd Disposal (34(
Managemen1(15 r

\\,

!
5_3.8 Resource Management /
(640('

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.

\ 5.3_2: Asset Creation

;and Acquisition (30)

5.3.6: Reliability Enginee

5_3.5: Maintenance Delivery

(1083(

3 Asset management planning

Figure 3 Asset Management Audit - Life Cycle Functions

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.

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.

Is there an asset management plan (24)

\,
The AMP is reviewed /
[BI'.

Resources are enabled

to deliver AMP-specified tasks (91

/"

The AMP is communicated

to stakeholders [8]

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.

5.1.2: Asset Management

Objectives (85]

/ '

[9[

[91

5".

'l\

The AMP has clear tasks

The AMPs are optimised

5.1.1: Asset Management Policy (81(

514: Strategic Plan n

AMP takes into account

li,fe cycle activities [11]

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.

5.1.5: Asset Management _,/

Plans (90

s-

a
can be demonstrated bySt1j t r .

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.

5.1.2: Asset Management

Strategy (t 09]

5.1.3: Demand Analysis

(10]

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

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.

Asset ManaBement

Spending
review
t.IPlanned
Actual
Spend}<5%

Figure 6 Generating Work - Asset Management Plan plus other sources

system, a principle which is shown in Figure 6. A web-based
tool was constructed which provided the functionality to meet
the listed principles for an asset management plan.
The development of the asset management plan was based on
the following principles:
1:_ I:ak.

-_ ... _ .. .. --.--.. ..

All condition assessments, failures, work history

trends and consulting reports or equivalent represent
authoritative information which needs to be
reviewed for identifying problems or opportunities
for improvement in assets;
Opinions and results from meeting discussions do
not constitute evidence which can be acted on in
asset management planning;
An enterprise has many issues to be resolved and
some will require further investigation and others
need to be simply recorded, awaiting further action;
Risk management is the principle by which priorities
in asset management decision making are set;
The resolution of an issue may require one or many
possible tasks, and each task may resolve one or
many registered issues;
A task needs to be stated and then tested before it
can be approved and recorded in the work
management system as a transaction. This allows the
enterprise time to think about the best approach to
resolving a problem;
The value of a task is the degree to which it
mitigates the risks of the initiating issues it is
intended to resolve; and
Generating backlogs of tasks in an asset
management plan is just another backlog for
overloaded work teams. Hence they need a portfolio
management approach to help them get on top of the
work.

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62 516 j:ll p . f." I . et.m. t

Close up of issue

Figure 7 Asset Management Plan -Issues

A list of possible issues from across the transmission network
was compiled into a database. A close up of one such issue is
shown above: SF6 piping problems with a circuit breaker.
The issues could be referenced using the asset inventory
found in the enterprise's MAXIMO work management
system, shown on the left hand side of the Overview exhibit
above.
An important aspect of this work is the design and
establishment of consistent surveys of the facilities, recording
the condition of assets in a repeatable format. This must
become a routine process which, along with regular analysis
of work history, will inform the enterprise in a sustainable
manner where its key risks are determined as well as the

In other words the asset management plan is a repository of

possible work which has yet to enter the work delivery

effectiveness of current projects and maintenance work in

remediation, [9].

cost and was risk assessed to ascertain how much of the

original risk in the underlying issues would be resolved.

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.

There are numerous benefits with this approach but probably

the key ones appreciated by asset owners include:

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.

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.

Edit Issue Number 11 (New)

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.

...

L
I

PENPervns.e

The portfolio approach is shown in the example below.

Projects

a)

Registering an issue

--....

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..

IUIIl

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....
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....,
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-UMfI_2'IO

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_",,-,,_

u.J_..

__ ...-.-- .....

- -

VI'" 1

__

15 "r 1

Attached Solutions

_ ......... -..

b)

Risk ranking an issue

1.__-

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:

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.

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.

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:

A proposal of work needed clear objectives and demonstrable

benefits, had to be allocated to someone, had an estimated

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Multi
Disciplinary Eng., vol. 11 2014.

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