Infrastructure Asset Management is the discipline of managing infrastructure assets that underpin an economy, such as roading, water supply, wastewater, stormwater, power supply, flood management, recreational and other assets. In the past these assets have typically been owned and managed by local or central government. Investment in these assets is made with the intention that dividends will accrue through increased productivity, improved living conditions and greater prosperity.
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Infrastructure Asset Management is the discipline of managing infrastructure assets that underpin an economy, such as roading, water supply, wastewater, stormwater, power supply, flood management, recreational and other assets. In the past these assets have typically been owned and managed by local or central government. Investment in these assets is made with the intention that dividends will accrue through increased productivity, improved living conditions and greater prosperity.
A well-defined Standard of service (SoS) is the foundation of Infrastructure Asset Management. The SoS states, in objective and measurable terms, how an asset will perform, including a suitable minimum condition grade in line with the impact of asset failure. There are two main objectives of Infrastructure Asset Management relating to standard of service:
A) Sustain SoS (System Preservation): to sustain or deliver an agreed standard of service in the most cost-effective way through the operation, maintenance, refurbishment, and replacement of assets. Management of this objective is the focus of Asset Management Plans.
B) Change SoS (Capacity Expansion): to make strategic changes and improvements to the standard of service of the asset portfolio through the creation, acquisition, improvement and disposal of assets. Changes to the SoS are usually managed as a programme based on strategic objectives regarding the asset portfolio.
Sustain SoS (System Preservation)
The key components of the sustain SoS objective are:
- a defined standard of service
- measurable specification of how the asset should perform
- minimum condition grade
- a whole-life cost approach
- asset management plan
Defined standard of service
Without a defined standard of service (SoS) there is no means of knowing what service level customers can expect, and no effective control on the whole-life cost. With a clearly defined SoS, the asset manager is clear about how success or failure will be measured, and the customer understands what to expect in return for the expenditure on the asset system. There are two parts of a well-defined Standard of Service: the minimum condition grade and a specified performance standard. By managing against a defined SoS, which couples the performance specification with the condition grade as a measure of reliability, Asset Managers avoid the considerable complication of trying to optimise maintenance over short timeframes, or the need to determine the outcome or benefit associated with each individual intervention. Asset Management takes a whole-life cost approach to decisions regarding operation, maintenance, refurbishment and replacement of assets.
Performance specification
The first part of standard of service is an objective, measurable specification of how the asset should perform. This would normally include a specification of the attributes of the asset which are important to its function e.g. location, type, height, capacity. A good performance specification will avoid being prescriptive about the method, but be specific enough to be simply and objectively measured. For example, a specification for a roading asset might be that it is capable of conveying 200 vehicles per day, with a certain roughness coefficient. A flood management asset should be specified in terms of crest-level and location - not in terms of the return period against which it might offer protection.
