Steering Committee
In sponsoring an asset management program, senior managers should create a Steering Committee that will:
- Focus on life cycle asset management issues
- Guide the activities of the Corporate and Business Asset Management Teams.
Management should select all committee members based on their commitment and passion for asset management. This group will become the champions for the organization. The aim of the group is to:
- Examine how the organization's philosophy for asset management is being interpreted throughout the hierarchy
- Devise and initiate change initiatives for their constituents
- Address any cross-communication issues.
The Steering Committee fits into the management structure as shown below. It should include representatives of all the major departments or sections that will be involved in asset management plans or activities.
Key project sponsors and project representatives must be involved to:
- Facilitate the formation of agendas
- Define individual roles and responsibilities
- Initiate an effective working process.
Project representatives will also attend meetings in order to:
- Gauge the effectiveness of the asset management teams
- Introduce methods for self-evaluating progress
- Assist the groups to introduce changes to their team process
- Assist in addressing asset management issues.
The work carried out by the AMSC will fall into three distinct phases:
The Asset Management Steering Committee will have a different emphasis in each of the three phases. Roles of groups, and intensity of involvement will change and thus the structure of the group needs to change to reflect the emphasis required.
Strategy Planning Role
During the planning phase (Needs Analysis) the Steering Committee should include key players from the following sections of the organization:
- Finance and Economics
- Corporate Strategy Planning Group
- Information Technology or Electronic Data Processing Group
- Asset Management Coordinator
- Technical Management Groups (possibly for each of the main asset groups).
The latter group should primarily involve operations and maintenance staff, however, secondary roles need to be played by design, survey and construction personnel to define the ancillary benefits required from the systems.
The representative from this group also needs to represent the full vertical spectrum of technical management from the corporate level, through business units, down to the workface or facility groups.
The Asset Management Coordinator, the most senior asset management position, will lead the Steering Committee. Given the significance of this position, a 3-5 year commitment is necessary. The role should be supported by a number of senior business unit staff and technically-experienced assistants.
Implementation Role
At the end of the Needs Analysis Phase, strategies should be in place for:
- Provision of the various systems required for Asset Management
- The type of data to be input
- A detailed program for the data collection.
Financial integration methods will have been determined and the various cash accounting and accrual economic outputs finalized.
The data collection will dominate the implementation phase and will often constitute some 80-90% of the expenditure required to complete the program.
The Steering Committee needs to reflect on its membership, and it should include all the coordinators from the business units or asset type groups. It may require representatives from the various business or regional units.
During this phase the information technology, finance/economic, and corporate strategy team members will play an ex-officio role in the Steering Committee, and should be called upon to report on the progress in their areas.
The major activity will involve the effective management of the data collection.
Operational Role
During the Operational Phase the main task of the Steering Committee involves the evaluation of the outputs from the systems. There is also a large role in:
- Monitoring the systems
- Ensuring that the databases truly reflect the condition of the organization's assets and are continually enhanced to address the problems that are identified by the data analysis.
Determination of the most critical aspects will involve the application of risk management techniques.
Asset Management Executive Team
In some organizations the asset management steering committee will be quite large. As the profile of asset management increases, the numbers of stakeholders who believe that they need to be involved, either full time or part time, tends to rise. Customer services staff, operational staff and representatives from all asset groups may wish to be involved.
A corporate-wide approach should be encouraged and supported, as the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
However this may cause the steering committee to become less efficient and perhaps unwieldy, especially with regards to decision making.
An Executive Management team of the Steering Committee may be formed to address this issue.
Asset Management Steering Committee Charter
The following information is an example of the terms of reference of an Asset Management Steering Committee.
Targeted Goals
- Develop a Corporate Asset Management Strategy, including corporate AM goals and objectives.
- Co-ordinate and monitor the Asset management planning program at a corporate level.
- Confirm the organization's asset management structure and responsibilities.
- Make recommendations on the corporate impacts, including resourcing requirements, of improvement programs.
- Negotiate and agree asset management planning performance measures.
- Contract in the services of the asset management plan Development Partner.
- Facilitate corporate Asset Management input to Information Technology initiatives.
Purpose Statement
To provide strategic corporate direction for the continued improvement of the management of all physical assets.
Scope
To develop and implement a Corporate Asset Management Strategy, implement and monitor Asset Management Planning systems, processes and policies as required.
Objectives
- To define corporate standards and criteria for asset management plans to ensure standardization across the organization.
- To define asset management planning priorities and a program for completion of the asset management plan, such program to identify the resources needed to complete the plan.
- To examine the IT systems purchased by the organization for asset management purposes and recommend modifications and or proposals for integration and alignment where appropriate. Also to ensure that existing and proposed systems have linkages to systems.
- To develop a framework for monitoring, updating and improving Asset Management Plans.
- To continue to liaise with Cost of Growth Team to define organizational resource allocation priorities due to growth.
- To review the function and terms of reference of the team as required by the Team Sponsor.