Why You Need a Utility Asset Management Plan

Now more than ever, utility providers are under pressure. Tasked with delivering a consistent service to an expanding population, our infrastructure is already struggling to cope. No doubt as more of the world’s population becomes urbanised, this pressure is only going to increase.

In fact, scientists currently predict that almost 70% of the world’s population will be urban by 2050. For assets used in water delivery, waste water treatment, and energy generation, this could pose a problem without serious investment.

Add to this the spectre of climate change, prompting extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and higher temperatures that call for more air conditioning, and it’s clear that utilities need to think carefully about asset management and renewal.

What is a Utility Asset Management Plan?

A utility asset management plan is a key part of meeting this pressure head-on. It provides utility managers with all the relevant information they need to take effective decisions, comprising an inventory of assets, their condition and performance, and any future planned maintenance.

When, like most utility companies, you need to balance asset investment with financial constraints, a utility asset management plan helps you budget for maintenance, repairs, and replacements so you can keep assets healthy and working properly.

A long-term strategy helps you manage assets effectively over time by monitoring their characteristics and condition. Not only does this help you stay on top of current demand but long-term, it can also help you get the maximum possible return on asset investment. Enabling you to meet the infrastructure challenges of an urbanised society successfully.

Why You Need a Utility Asset Management Plan

According to the ISO 55000 standard, an asset management plan provides the roadmap for achieving maximum value from physical assets by optimizing cost, risk and performance across the whole asset lifecycle.

Using a systematized approach, this allows utility managers to document their assets and score them according to their importance and condition. By facilitating an objective assessment of which assets need to be replaced or upgraded, you can plan a schedule of investment for the next 5, 10 or 20 years.

This not only enables continued provision of those resources critical to a healthy community, but it also ensures you make the most of limited resources. Thus, with the tools to outline the entire lifecycle of an asset, a utility asset management plan offers a number of benefits.

4 Benefits of a Utility Asset Management Plan

In order to be truly effective, a utility asset management plan needs to encompass a whole host of asset management tools and systems related to maintenance, testing, finance, procurement and even geospatial data.

Linking these disparate systems into one asset management plan can improve decision making, so it’s a good idea to ensure your plan is supported by an asset management software system, such as AMCS Field Services, which can offer the following advantages.

1.Keep Track of All Assets

An effective utility asset management plan tells you where assets are located, what their service level is, how they are used, and any changes that have been made to them. By monitoring your assets in real-time and simplifying data collection you can prioritize work to the assets that need it most, delivering asset recovery that will lead to better returns, improved reliability, and regular compliance.

2. Greater Efficiency When Managing Assets

Plans are created for efficiency. Utility asset management plans allow everyone in the organization to understand the capabilities of its assets and how they are maintained. This includes a clear definition of service levels, and the ability to measure and monitor the life cycle of assets to ensure they are being used effectively.

3. Promotes cost-effective collaboration

Effective asset management requires co-ordination with a variety of business departments, across multiple locations and facilities. With tools to manage assets like vehicles, tools, equipment, and workers from a single location, a cloud-based software solution can offer significant benefits. With tools to manage your field team or optimize routes for maximum efficiency, the AMCS Utilities Platform supports essential collaboration that boosts productivity and reduces costs.

4. Reduce Asset Maintenance Costs

Just like any tool or equipment, assets require maintenance, the cost of which can cut into the profits of the company. Shifting from reactive to proactive maintenance and utilizing condition monitoring to assess asset priority can help to reduce this risk. Your utility asset management plan should help to outline this process, detailing when and how often to perform maintenance on certain assets to ensure you are not overspending.

In addition to these benefits, a utility asset management plan also requires you to plan for asset recovery and risk management so you can ensure your assets are properly managed and accounted for throughout their entire life cycle, no matter what future pressures they face.

An Effective Tool for Risk Management

In order manage your assets effectively, it is important to identify risks so you can work on how to avoid them. A utility asset management plan should therefore include risk assessment to help managers understand causal events and the way they can lead to customer service failures.

Whether this involves equipment failures leading to unplanned energy outages, or asset decay leading to water leakage and an increase in non-revenue water, an asset management plan should hep you reduce the likelihood of issues by providing information on whether to change the asset base, or its operation, to reduce risk.

The Value of Asset Recovery for a Sustainable Future

Asset recovery is an essential part of every utility asset management plan. It ensures that any assets that are scrapped or sold release maximum value back into the business. Related consumables and spare parts can also be written off or sold to free storage space and maximize returns.

It’s a process that is already ably managed by asset management software, but it is also one that will become increasingly important for future utilities trying to manage ageing assets in the face of climate pressure. Not least because there is immense value in energy and utilities infrastructure for those that manage it wisely.

From wind turbine blades to solar panels, future asset ‘waste’ has a lot to offer. In fact an IRENA report highlights that as today’s photovoltaic (PV) panels reach the end of their life, they could unlock an estimated 78 million tons of raw materials and other valuable components globally by 2050.

Software Solutions for Utility Asset Management

Effective asset recovery as described above depends on data to support decisions around how to recover, reuse and recycle assets in a circular economy. One of the main challenges in assessing assets prior to retirement is a lack of information, which means asset management software and effective digital data collection are a must.

Ultimately, as we look to a future keen to implement a sustainable asset management strategy able to handle the challenges of tomorrow, it seems there’s one key ingredient that can’t be ignored: the digital utility asset management plan you set out today.

Find out what to consider when creating an asset management plan for your utilities and let us inform your long-term strategy with software solutions to help you monitor and maintain assets cost effectively. Download the AMCS Field Services brochure or request a demo below.