Data Required
This topic covers:
In most cases, the data required would fall into several categories, depending on the use that will be made of it.
In general, the categories will be:
- The corporate management needs for data
- The regional or business units management needs
- The workplace's needs
- The particular needs of the assets themselves, depending on their general condition and type.
The data required for each of these groups will be slightly different, but basically, the workface data will be the most significant.
If this data is collected in a logical way, it can be aggregated in a reduced form into larger units as it passes up through the corporate structure. The data required at the business unit level will be less than that required at the workface and subsequently data required by the corporate will be less than that required by the business units. However the accuracy of the data will be dependant on the detailed inputs that are provided at the workface level, where the really critical aspects of asset management are undertaken.
There may be situations where individual assets or asset components have reached a stage in their life where additional data would be required and in most cases, this data should be kept on databases separate from the corporate systems. This may only be required for a single individual use and then discarded.
For each of the major asset groups held in the asset base e.g. buildings, electrical and mechanical distribution, etc., there are likely to be particular technical attributes that should be kept as a textual database. The assets all have particular attributes that need to be kept for effective operations and maintenance as well as the long-term strategic planning functions that are needed for responsible asset management.
The typical "corporate" data required for a generic "asset component" is shown below:
Corporate
- Strategy Planning
- Options Assessments
- Financial Viability
- Macro Data
Business Unit
- True Costs
- Critical Issues
- Corporate Data
- Effective Management
- Macro Data Analysis
Workface
- Critical Issues
- Costs of Activities
- Levels of Service
- Business Unit Data
- Micro Data on Assets
- Component costs
Assets Themselves
- Depends on Age Condition Requirements
- Data Requirements for Corporate Needs.
A total asset management program sufficient to provide advanced (sophisticated) asset management will involve up to six stages:
Stage 1 - Management Phase
- Setting base strategy
- Asset data classification configuration
- I.T. system requirements
- Resources depend on:
- Degree of coordination required
- Level of accuracy in estimates etc.
Stage 2 - Base Asset Register
- Completion of base register details
- Identification
- Priority One Data
- Asset Valuation/Replacement/St line depreciation)
- Resources depend on:
- Ease of identification
- Data capture degree of difficulty.
Stage 3 - Base Technical Asset Management
- Improve attribute data
- Introduce basic condition assessment
- Introduce residual value curves derive WDV
- Optimize data collection to critical assets
- Begin to raise U.M. work orders and histories
- Resources depends on:
- The types of assets
- The number of assets
- Degree of difficulty in data capture
- Degree of attributes/condition
- Accuracy of valuation.
Stage 4 - Introduce Maintenance Management
- Determine target levels of service
- Develop standard procedures
- Apply procedures to assets
- Schedule procedure intervals
- Begin to raise PM work orders and history
- Complete maintenance plans for key assets
- Begin to introduce FMECA and risk management
- Resources depends on:
- The number of assets
- The type of assets
- The degree of sophistication in the:
- Procedures developed
- Scheduling
- Maintenance planning undertaken.
Stage 5 - Enhance Systems To Include Full Advanced Asset Management Techniques
- Complete FMECA analysis on all key asset groups and critical facilities
- Complete consequence of failure (risk management) analysis on all passive assets
- Apply these findings to the life cycle strategy and maintenance plans for these assets
- Resources required will be primarily dependent on:
- The complexity of the asset system (interrelationships/redundancy)
- The degree of sophistication required.
Stage 6 - System Optimization Phase
This stage can be introduced earlier for critical assets. The stage involves the detailed analysis of the data available. It generally involves an Optimized Renewal Decision Analysis (ORDM).
ORDM Analysis includes the identification of:
- All options for overcome failure
- Quantification of the benefits/costs of each option
- The most appropriate strategy for each asset, facility or system.
Resources required depends on the:
- Number of assets involved
- Complexity of the benefit calculations
- Number of treatment options applicable.
Implementation Stage Program
These programs can be implemented in series (completing each stage totally) or in parallel, by commencing sufficient work in the earlier stage to enable the next stage to be commenced.
The latter (parallel) process is recommended for most organizations. Parallel programs allow the organization to:
- Address the areas that will deliver the greatest benefits
- Have greater flexibility with their programs
- Meet the needs of other groups e.g. survey/design planning etc.
This process takes a greater management input and monitoring/review but does allow the program to be completed in the most logical way.
Some organizations will move into asset management by implementing only parts of their ultimate asset management system. This may involve setting up initial inventories and accrual accounting, together with asset maintenance management systems that will eventually grow to include digital mapping (spatial data) and interface with other systems such as financial and economic.
Organizations will usually have been decided on their first steps before they form asset management systems and management teams. However it is important to realize that the concepts and principles should be the same, whether it is a fully integrated system or just parts, to ensure that the individual units or the data collected can be included in a fully integrated system in future.
The critical factor in the resource estimates will be the size of the organization and the number of assets that it has or holds responsibility for.
This will impact in two major ways:
- On the numbers and different types of assets the organization holds
- On the required level of data entry.
All of these issues will need to be taken into account at the project evaluation stage. Decisions need to be made as to the number and type of assets that will be covered by these systems and what constitutes a "maintenance managed item".
The degree to which the systems are integrated will impact on the workload required for managing and setting up the basic principles, codes and categories for the various systems interfaces.
This will impact greatly in two ways:
- The amount of management time required to set up the necessary codes and structures for the integration
- The data inputting time required to related the various systems to each other by interfacing identifiers, files, or codes.
This factor alone will have the greatest impact on resources required for the implementation of any system.
The level to which component data is collected will greatly effect the workload required, as it is directly related to the number of assets owned by the organization, and the complexity of those assets in relation to their relative classification or coding of the asset components, sub-components, spare parts, etc.
Each level for passive assets will involve a factor of five or six times the asset component numbers over the previous level. It can increase by more than ten times the number of data entries required for dynamic mechanical electrical assets, where process machinery is involved.
In making a decision on the level to which data will be collected, the organization needs to consider:
- Their overall resources and the impact that this will have on the organization
- The realization that this program is an initial step into asset management and that the systems can be allowed to evolve to a high degree of complexity over a reasonable time frame and that each degree of complexity can be undertaken based on the needs of the organization and the assets themselves at a future point in time.
In the initial phases, the organization can decide on a level of entry and this can be tested during the pilot scheme phase, where the degree of complexity and the workability of the level can be verified. Decisions can be made to suit the organization as a whole and the balance of the assets.
The second major factor is the existing sources of the data and their accessibility or availability, and the ease with which they can be transferred to the electronic data base systems.
This is a complex and detailed matter and needs to be looked at closely to determine the actual resources required. In most cases this work will be carried out as a specialist part of the project evaluation. In the early stages, this often needs to be a subjective assessment that needs to be reviewed by the AMT as the program progresses.