Water Asset Management International 2.3 (2006) 13-15

Asset management and its alignment with effective utility management

David C Sklar

Red Oak Consulting
USA

For an asset management programme to be successful, an overall change in thinking, strategy, and process must be embraced across all departments within a utility’s organisation. Every department and function has a role to play in an asset management programme, and must understand their overall impact in order to ensure that the programme achieves its stated goals and objectives. Success requires a multi-disciplinary approach that includes engineering, operations, maintenance, financial and business functions. Because asset management is so all-encompassing, it must be aligned with overall efforts toward effective utility management. Essentially, asset management is about ‘businesslike management of assets’, and thus cannot be considered as a standalone programme that is purely in the realm of engineers, operators, or maintenance personnel. This is dramatically different to the physical infrastructure focused approach that many utilities have adopted.

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