Decision Support Tools

In addition to training programs the organization needs to provide decision support tools, such as the Optimized Renewal Decision Making (ORDM).

A key issue in asset management is the ability to make optimal decision in regard to renewal/ replacement strategy. This requires the identification of the potential benefits and the possible reduction in risk cost. The ORDM should enable management to identify the most cost effective strategy and the timing at which these proposed works should be carried out.

In most cases this will require the creation of a risk management module that can be used by staff and applied to the individual assets to determine the true consequences of failure.

By using advanced asset management systems to determine the true physical condition of assets the probability of failure can be determined with a reasonable degree of confidence. The computer system should then manipulate these two ingredients to produce a current risk cost for that asset and that risk cost can be used to derive priority programs for maintenance, condition monitoring and renewal decision making.

The general arrangement of the necessary modules for advanced asset management including risk is shown below: