WHAT IS AN INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE?

After decades of investment in the development of infrastructure such roads, bridges, local water treatment facilities, electric transmission and utility lines, the need to sustain such infrastructure experiences has become more challenging. Current difficulties including tight budgets, deferral of needed maintenance funding, sudden failures and political pressures to cut public spending has raised the question on how to manage such big assets in an efficient and optimal manner. As a result, the life cycle of a facility, including Planning, Design, Construction, Operations, Maintenance, Upgrading, and Replacement, has become bifurcated between different stakeholders from owners, designers, contractors and operators. Thus the need to use an effective asset management tool has become more demanding.

Asset management refers to any system that monitors and maintains things of value to an entity or group. It may apply to both tangible assets such as machines and equipment to intangible concepts such as intellectual property and goodwill. It is a systematic process that involves arranging, operating, maintaining, upgrading, balancing of costs, opportunities and risks against the desired performance of assets, to achieve the organizational objectives. This balancing might need to be considered over different time frames.

Infrastructure asset management is the integrated, multidisciplinary set of strategies in sustaining public infrastructure assets such as water treatment facilities, sewer lines, roads, utility grids, bridges, and railways. Generally, the process focuses on the later stages of a facility’s life cycle specifically maintenance, rehabilitation, and replacement. Infrastructure Asset management specifically uses software tools to organize and implement these strategies with the fundamental goal to preserve and extend the service life of long-term infrastructure assets which are vital underlying components in maintaining the quality of life in society and efficiency in the economy.

The basic premise of infrastructure asset management is to intervene at strategic points in an asset’s normal life cycle to extend the expected service life, and thereby maintain its performance. Typically, a long-life-cycle asset requires multiple intervention points including a combination of repair and maintenance activities and even overall rehabilitation. Costs decrease with planned maintenance rather than unplanned maintenance. Yet, excessive planned maintenance increases costs. Thus, a balance between the two must be recognized. While each improvement raises an asset’s condition curve, each rehabilitation resets an asset’s condition curve, and complete replacement returns condition curve to new level or upgraded level. Therefore, strategically timing these interventions will aid in extending an asset’s life cycle. A simple working definition of asset management would be: first, assess what you have; then, assess what condition it is in; and lastly, assess the financial burden to maintain it at a targeted condition. Essential processes and activities for infrastructure asset management include the following:

• Maintaining a systematic record of individual assets (an inventory)—e.g., acquisition cost, original service life, remaining useful life, physical condition, repair and maintenance consistency

• Developing a defined program for sustaining the aggregate body of assets through planned maintenance, repair, and replacement

• Implementing and managing information systems in support of these systems—e.g., Geographic Information Systems

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