A Look at Two Roadmaps – IAM and AMBC

Gary Ruck is a registered Professional Engineer and Project Management Professional in Ontario. He has over 35 years of experience in asset management and is a recognized expert in that field. He is currently the Director of Global Business Development at Deighton Associates Ltd.

Summary

This is Part III of a seven-part blog series on the dTIMS Agency Roadmap. Please refer to the introductory blog “Part I - An Agency Roadmap – Do I Need One of Those?” for the basis of this series.

In this installment, we will look at two of the many asset management roadmaps available: IAM and AMBC. This “look” will not suggest that one is superior to the other, but rather highlight the nuances of each so you can choose the one most appropriate for your agency.

Introduction

In the previous installment of this series, the focus was on the six fundamental questions in most roadmaps that help you evaluate your agency’s asset management (AM) practices. Several organizations publish roadmaps related to asset management: ISO, Institute of Asset Management (IAM), and Asset Management British Columbia (AMBC) are just a few. This installment will focus on the latter two organizations. These roadmaps provide a framework for the dTIMS Agency Roadmap which will be covered in much detail in the remainder of this series. Prior to this, it is prudent to explore the roadmaps in this article.

Two Roadmaps

The Institute of Asset Management Roadmap

According to IAM’s website, “the Institute of Asset Management (the IAM) is the international professional body for asset management professionals. The IAM develops asset management knowledge and best practices and generates awareness of the benefits of the asset management discipline for the individual, organizations, and wider society”.

A substantial amount of literature is available at the above link, but two more pertinent for this author are “The Big Picture” and the “IAM Conceptual Model for Asset Management”.

The following figure depicts the conceptual model.

My interpretation of this model is as follows:

• Purpose & context of why AM in the first place must guide the way through the whole process

• Value & outcomes must be produced and measurable through the whole process

• Leadership & AM governance must lead the way within the overall purpose

• Constant review and improvement are important because it will never be perfect out of the gate and must always be adaptable

• The organization and its people implement the solution provided by their leadership

• Strategy must be defined and articulated, and a plan put in place on how to implement said strategy

• AM decision-making process is critical to execute the strategy for the particular people and the organization that is implementing it

• AM software (LC Delivery) is based on the AM strategy and the AM decision rules for the organization/agency

• Risk is something that needs to be established and measured for each organization and evaluated against an agency’s risk appetite

• Information is what other stakeholders in the organization/agency rely on to do their jobs

This model is useful to ensure that an organization’s AM goals are clearly defined and articulated across the agency, which is paramount if asset management is to be successful.

Asset Management British Columbia Roadmap

The second roadmap explored in this article is from AMBC. Their objective is “Strengthening BC Communities Through Leadership in Asset Management. Sharing information, transferring knowledge, and building capacity for sustainable service delivery”.

The AMBC roadmap is depicted below and this guide goes into much more detail.

Overall, the AMBC roadmap is divided into six categories. The dTIMS Agency Roadmap is based on this and includes many of the competencies shown here. The categories and their relationship to dTIMS concepts are shown below.

Each of these categories is depicted as a vertical swim lane in the previous image. The Asset Management Practice Modules are the numbered items within each category. A lot of these modules are competencies of dTIMS, and it is because of this close alignment between the AMBC roadmap and the dTIMS core competencies that the dTIMS Agency Roadmap is patterned after this.

The previous blog introduced and discussed six key questions to ask when building a roadmap.  To close out this blog, I wanted to connect that blog to this one and map the key questions to the AM Practice Modules.  This will become useful in subsequent blogs.  The following table summarizes the key questions again and shows a mapping to the AM practice modules shown earlier.  The point here is these practice modules help direct our energy to specific areas to help us answer these questions.

Conclusion

These two roadmaps are excellent tools to help guide an agency’s asset management practices. One of these practices is to define an objective and then build a clear path on how to get there.

““All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.””

— Earl Nightingale

The dTIMS Agency Roadmap is built upon the framework presented here. The idea of this roadmap is not unlike any other roadmap – to help you get from your current location to your destination and hopefully avoid any pitfalls along the way, all while enjoying the journey.

Around the world, dTIMS is used to help agencies through this process. dTIMS can be used for any asset type that your agency is responsible for. For example, the State of Vermont is using dTIMS to manage more than 20 of its critical assets. It is being used for the asset’s inventory and condition as well as the development of the short- and long-term financial plan. Contact Deighton Associates Ltd. to find out more about how we can help you along your asset management journey.

If you are responsible for asset management in your agency, please review these roadmaps and the accompanying material in this blog to understand the items you will require for your journey. Pack your bags, set your course, and enjoy the ride!

Please watch for future blogs that will continue this theme and go into more specifics.

Up Next: Part IV - The dTIMS Roadmap – Part I - Introduction.

Asset Management Roadmap Blog Series:

Part 1: An Agency Roadmap - Do I Need One of Those?

Part 2: The Checklist – What Questions You Can Ask to Help Build a Roadmap

The Checklist – What Questions You Can Ask to Help Build a Roadmap

Gary Ruck is a registered Professional Engineer and Project Management Professional in Ontario. He has over 35 years of experience in asset management and is a recognized expert in that field. He is currently the Director of Global Business Development at Deighton Associates Ltd.

Summary

This is Part II of a seven-part blog series on the dTIMS Agency Roadmap. Please refer to the introductory blog “Part I - An Agency Roadmap – Do I Need One of Those?” for the basis of this series.

In this installment, we will look at the six questions you should ask yourself to help gauge your agency’s asset management maturity (AMM) level and to help identify your future focus areas.

Introduction

In the previous installment of this series, the purpose was to determine your agency’s AMM, what information you might need to establish that, and how you could increase it. There are six fundamental questions in most roadmaps that help you evaluate your agency’s asset management (AM) practices.  There are always variations to these questions, but the fundamental approach is the same – to look at your AM practices from different perspectives and evaluate how your agency stacks up against industry-recognized best (asset) management practices, identify your existing gaps, and then determine the implementation activities necessary to bridge or close these gaps. This blog will explore those questions.

The 6 Questions

So, what are these questions? Let’s look at each one individually. The first three deal with your current inventory of assets, and the last three deal with how to maintain and fund these assets into the future.

Question 1: What do you have and where is it?

This question is a foundational one in asset management. Its purpose is to bring focus to exactly what assets your agency owns and is responsible for. It is impossible to do proper asset management if you don’t have a full inventory of all your assets. This inventory includes basic data about the asset but also, ideally, is linearly referenced to some base network, and preferably supported by GIS. Otherwise, you will end up with disparate data sets that cannot relate to one another, making it difficult to share data and results, and monitor performance.

For some agencies, the list of asset types that you are ultimately responsible for can be substantial. If this is the case for you, then you will need to prioritize which assets come first because it is unrealistic to work on all of them simultaneously. The prioritization can be based on asset value (more on this in the next question), risk, budget needs, or even an asset steward who is showing initiative.

Finally, for each asset type, you will want to decide on what asset components are important to collect. You don’t necessarily need an exhaustive list of items for every asset, but you will need to consider the AM objectives for each asset, how much data you currently have, do you have the right data, how will you acquire the data that you need, and how often should you collect it?

Question 2: What is it worth?

Once you know what you have and where it is, you will want to consider the importance of each asset type to help focus your AM efforts on the most important ones. This ranking can be in many forms, but two of the more commonly used ones are asset value and criticality. We will explore asset criticality in greater detail in the following question, but first, let’s discuss asset value.

Asset value is the concept of determining the monetary worth of each individual asset and its asset class. An asset class is the entire collection of similar assets. As with everything else, there is not just one way to do this, but depending on the asset type, the overall quantity of individual assets, and the data quality associated with your asset inventory, you can implement either a bottom-up or top-down approach.

A bottom-up approach determines the value of each individual asset at its current stage of life (e.g., year of service). A simple way to do this is to determine the asset’s replacement cost if new and then take a percentage of that based on its current condition and the amount of time the asset is anticipated to remain in service (i.e., service life). Then, you can sum up each asset’s value to determine the overall asset value for that asset class.

A top-down approach determines the overall asset value directly for the asset class without looking at each individual asset. You could sum up all the assets along with an asset value, and this total is the overall asset value for that asset type. A simple approach could be to use an average unit cost per asset and then apply that to the total number of assets.

Other questions to consider when considering an asset’s value include: what is your agency’s current investment level for the asset, and how fast are the assets being consumed? Calculating your asset replacement value can provide you with an indication if there is a potential issue. Similar to getting your blood pressure checked when you visit the doctor for a check-up!  For example, if your current investment levels cannot maintain, repair, or replace your assets at their current rate of consumption, then your asset backlog will continue to increase.

Question 3: What is its condition and expected remaining service life? 

This question focuses on asset condition while bringing in a level of service life angle. Condition is often a quantitative, engineering measure of the current state of the asset, but on its own, it might not tell you the whole picture.  A condition value of 40 out of 100 on an asset that is heavily used on a major component of your network versus the same condition value on a rarely used asset in a remote location is very different. The concepts of remaining service life (RSL) and criticality are used to help clarify the picture. In the example above, the first asset has a much lower RSL and higher criticality rating than the second asset and hence, should be considered earlier in your AM plan.

The purpose of the first three questions is to objectively identify and evaluate what you currently have, and to consider developing a sense of urgency for each asset class.

Question 4: What is the level of service expectation, and what needs to be done and when?

The next two questions highlight areas where the benefits of an asset management software application are maximized. In this question, you are establishing what level of service your agency and your stakeholders expect from each asset class. For example, is it acceptable for 20% of the roads to be in poor condition? What about the bridges? Based on these answers, you will likely develop both a capital and a maintenance and operations plan for each asset type to prescribe what to do and when to do it to achieve the desired level of service. To create these work plans, your asset management software application will likely examine the current condition of your asset and predict how that condition will change in the future. Based on this prediction, a set of maintenance, rehabilitation, and replacement recommendations will be recommended along with a cost and a timeframe for implementation.

Question 5: How much will it cost and what is the acceptable level of risk(s)?       

The work plan discussed in the previous question on its own does not provide the full picture. Much like maintaining condition is not the same as achieving a desired service level, a work plan needs to consider other factors to be a useful AM artifact. For each asset class, your agency needs to evaluate or determine its risk appetite. Risk appetite is the level of risk that an agency is willing to accept or tolerate, which can be quite low for critical assets such as bridges, but might be higher for other assets such as traffic signs. The risk appetite coupled with your agency’s budgeted asset investment level will help you develop a more structured work plan that can be used to evaluate your predicted performance against your AM objectives.

The work plan will contain a wealth of information that your agency can use to make its AM decisions, such as future capital and operating costs, and from this a short and long-term financial plan, asset renewal alternatives, and asset maintenance and rehabilitation strategies. With this information in hand, you will be able to determine if you are meeting your AM objectives, and if not where you are falling short and what strategies you will need to employ to meet your objectives. Of course, this assumes that you have explicitly documented your AM goals and objectives!

Question 6: How do you ensure long-term affordability? 

Finally, with your work plan in hand and an idea of what your future financial plan looks like, you will need to determine how you can sustain this over the long term. Up to now, we have been looking at assets individually and independently of one another. But this approach may be neither sustainable nor economical, as you may simply not have enough funds to meet the needs of all your assets! You will likely need to consider reducing your performance expectations for one or more asset classes, which reduces the amount of funds you need. This increases the amount of risk exposure you must carry so you can balance your infrastructure needs against your available funds. Making these difficult trade-off type decisions highlights the need to coordinate infrastructure works to minimize future disruptions to the traveling public – your stakeholders – while providing efficiency through economies of scale. Many agencies have seen the benefits of developing corridor projects that address maintenance and capital needs in a single project.

What funding sources are available to your agency and how reliable are these going forward? Is the level of investment going to change dramatically at all in the years ahead? These are just some of the questions around the reliability of the funding sources you have at your disposal and must be answered in your financial plan. The best-laid plans will go for not if the investment level is not there to execute them.

Conclusion

These six questions or variations thereof are fundamental to your agency’s AM efforts. If your agency is serious about AM, you will need to go through these questions for each asset type and document your answers. This becomes the foundation of your asset management plan. The questions help you look at the now and the future, and allow your agency to take a proactive approach to preserve assets for future generations. And, by going through these questions, you will determine your agency’s AMM and identify future areas of improvement.

Around the world, dTIMS is used to help agencies through this process. dTIMS can be used for any asset type that your agency is responsible for. For example, the State of Vermont is using dTIMS to manage more than 20 of its critical assets. It is being used for the asset’s inventory and condition as well as the development of the short- and long-term financial plan. Contact Deighton Associates Ltd. to find out more about how we can help you along your asset management journey.

If you are responsible for asset management in your agency, pick one asset and go through these questions for that asset. At first, do not spend a lot of time on each one. Just go through the process to get a feel for the resources you may need to answer the questions. You will not and cannot do it on your own. But asset management always requires a champion to get a foothold within an agency. Be that champion!

I encourage you to reach out to anyone at Deighton to learn more about the agency roadmap and to participate in and help influence the work Deighton is doing in this area.

Please watch for future blogs that will continue this theme and go into more specifics.

Up Next: Part III - A Look at Two Roadmaps – IAM and AMBC.

Asset Management Roadmap Blog Series:

Part 1: An Agency Roadmap - Do I Need One of Those?

Part 2: The Checklist – What Questions You Can Ask to Help Build a Roadmap

Part 3: A Look at Two Roadmaps - IAM and AMBC

An Agency Roadmap – Do I Need One of Those?

Gary Ruck is a registered Professional Engineer and Project Management Professional in Ontario. He has over 35 years of experience in asset management and is a recognized expert in that field. He is currently the Director of Global Business Development at Deighton Associates Ltd.

Summary

Many organizations that have implemented some form of an asset management system often wonder what’s next? Is my system up-to-date and providing me the best return on investment? What new innovations are out there that I could benefit from? What are other agencies doing, and am I following best practices? Read on and this blog will help you with these questions.

Introduction

Imagine you bought a starter house and you start wondering how you can potentially upgrade it over time. Or you've lived in your current house for several years and are ready to make some upgrades to it. In both scenarios, there are many things you can do. You can do regular maintenance on it to keep it functional, or you can upgrade existing rooms with paint, new furniture and other amenities. You could do more substantive changes like add additional space, upgrade existing systems or other major renovations. How would you know what to do, where to start, what it would cost and if it’s worth it in the long run?

Most homeowners would create a plan, research what can be done, come up with estimates and a timeline, and start to plan out the work either formally or informally. This is like a renovation road map.

An agency that has implemented a single asset management system is in a similar position as the homeowner. If the agency is fortunate enough to have an asset management software application that is capable of expansion, then they are also able to evaluate whether they are getting the best return on their investment in the software, and if not, change it. But often, the challenge is where and how to start and what to do next.

Agency Roadmaps

“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.
”

— Earl Nightingale

A roadmap is a strategic plan that defines a goal or desired outcome and includes the major steps needed to reach it. It can also serve as a communication tool, a high-level document that helps articulate strategic thinking—the why—behind both the goal and the plan for getting there. It would be used as a benchmark to gauge progression. Any roadmap not only shows you the destination but also the stops along the way, the preferred route (often among many alternatives sometimes) and your current progress towards the destination.

Any agency that uses dTIMS as their asset management application can plan their asset management journey and look at opportunities to change or enhance that journey.

“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”

— Confucius

With a roadmap - at least the modern kind that uses GPS, not the paper version - you can gauge your progress along the route at any point in time (think of the little blue dot!). An agency progressing along its roadmap needs some measure to quantitatively gauge itself at any point in time. This is called the Asset Management Maturity (AMM) scale and it can be used to pinpoint where you are today and see if you have progressed when measured again at a future date. It is not an absolute or universal measure, but if used consistently for an organization over time, it does not need to be. The reason the AMM is so important is to know that if you change something with your asset management system (AMS), did you make things better?

And speaking of changing something in your AMS, how would you go about doing this? At Deighton, we talk about growth in three ways: organically, vertically, and horizontally. In this blog we will introduce the concept and then dive into further details in subsequent blog posts. The following table outlines the types of growth and the common activities performed for each of the growth types.

Conclusion

Asset management in an organization is not an inexpensive undertaking. Between data collection, storage and maintenance of data, staff time to support all the asset management activities and computer software applications – the purchase, configuration, and maintenance of these resources can add up! However, to not do asset management is even more costly and much riskier. The worst thing would be to sink all these costs into asset management and then not get the benefit out of it and/or let the system stagnate and not advance to accommodate the ever present and ongoing changes in the industry, therefore not providing the value to your organization that asset management should.

Fortunately, with Deighton’s assistance and dTIMS as the tool, you can grow your asset management system to ensure your organization maximizes its return on investment. Deighton has begun the development of an agency roadmap and is currently seeking agencies to help fine tune it.

Using the graphic below, where is your agency? Are you able to answer this question? What information do you need to be able to? What is your agency’s Asset Management Maturity? Do you know how to increase it?

I am guessing most readers may not be able to answer all these questions or if you can, will at least want to be able to maximize their return on their asset management investment. If this is your agency, then the next step is yours to take.  I encourage you to reach out to myself or anyone else at Deighton to learn more about the agency roadmap and to participate in and help influence the work Deighton is doing in this area.

To learn more, stay tuned for the next blog in this series: “The Checklist – What questions you can ask to help build a roadmap”.

Asset Management Roadmap Blog Series:

Part 1: An Agency Roadmap - Do I Need One of Those?

Part 2: The Checklist – What Questions You Can Ask to Help Build a Roadmap

Part 3: A Look at Two Roadmaps - IAM and AMBC

Deighton Receives WCC Business Achievement Award

Deighton Associates Ltd. is proud to announce we were selected as the recipient of the “Business Achievement Award - 50+ Employees” presented by the Whitby Chamber of Commerce (WCC) on November 10, 2022.

During the Peter Perry & Business Achievement Awards, the WCC recognizes local businesses that have demonstrated a passion for excellence, a commitment to their community, and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Since these three pillars reflect Deighton’s core values as a company, we are honoured to be recognized by our community as successfully living out these values.

Deighton CEO Vicki Deighton receives the ‘Business Achievement Award 50+ Employees’.

Upon receiving the award, our CEO Vicki Deighton said, “I continue to tell our staff that we are in the ‘centre of the universe’ in Whitby and there is no other place I would rather be. We are surrounded by brilliance in this community and businesses that I am so proud to be associated with.”

Deighton will continue to grow as a company in the coming years, and we look forward to supporting and contributing to the developing community in Whitby.

We would like to extend thanks to RBC and Heather Dunn for nominating us for this award. We are grateful for your continued support.

Call for Presentations - DUC2022

The 2022 Deighton User Conference (DUC2022) connects asset management professionals from all over the world and is the perfect opportunity to share your case study, innovative solution, or dTIMS story with Deighton's global community.

Present at DUC2022

Our preparations for DUC2022 have already begun, and we are giving you the opportunity to participate and help make DUC2022 a success!

Does your organization have an industry success story you'd like to share? Are you passionate about discussing new developments in the infrastructure asset management industry? Do you have an innovative solution to an industry problem?

If you are interested in sharing your knowledge and presenting at DUC2022, we would love to hear from you! We are accepting abstract submissions until February 1, 2022. Selections will be made after this date, and we will contact the successful applicants.

Potential Topics

Potential topics for DUC2022 include:

• Success Stories - Are you willing to share your agency's dTIMS story? dTIMS rapid-fire case studies allow you to share your successes with everyone. Start with your agency overview, talk about the challenges you faced, then conclude with your solution and results. We will provide the template.
• Innovative Solutions - Is your agency thinking differently about how you manage assets? Are you adopting innovations in data collection techniques? Are you using dTIMS to manage a non-traditional asset class? Are you currently implementing a project that is pushing the limits? Share your innovative projects with the dTIMS Community.
• Integrations - Aside from the ability to integrate multiple assets in dTIMS, your agency may include unique integrations such as social and environmental indicators, climate, noise, external enterprise systems, and more. Share your story.

Customer Success Stories

Innovative Solutions

Integrations

Submit Your Abstract

To submit an abstract for consideration, please include the following information:

• Presenter Name and Job Title

• Company Name and Address

• Presentation Title

• Presentation Abstract (200 words max)

• Optional Link to Supporting Documents

Include a focus on how you or your company used dTIMS technology in your presentation. You can submit directly using the form on our website, or email your submission to info.web@deighton.com. The deadline to submit is February 1, 2022.