Asset Management – Myths and Facts

Welcome to this blog series regarding myths and facts about asset management. 

We will explore a series of myths regarding what asset management is and what it isn’t.

We’d love to hear from you so let us know if you have any suggestions for future topics in this series or if you have any comments on our series.

You can also let us know your biggest concerns about asset management for future blog posts.

Myth #1 — Asset Management is a Computer Program

I believe this is the biggest myth regarding asset management. 

Many people fall into the trap that asset management is nothing more than a computer program you buy and populate with information.

In this theory of asset management, if you buy a better computer program or put in more data, you will have a better asset management program. 

Following this thinking to its logical conclusion, the best way to have a great asset management program would be to invest a LOT of money in the best computer program on the market and then spend lots of time filling in data.

In my opinion, this couldn’t be further from the reality of asset management. 

Asset management is a way of thinking about your operation overall and the operation and management of your assets.

The problem is, even the best computer program in the world, can’t do your thinking for you.  The information can aid your thinking process but cannot replace it.

Facts — Let’s bust Myth #1 with these examples

Consider a community with two maintenance personnel who travel to locations to perform maintenance. 

Their facility is located in a small, rural area so it is not easy to get spare parts and it takes considerable time to travel around their entire service area.

They are having problems with traveling to a job and not having the right materials. The job may have to be left unfinished for a period of time, sometimes days or weeks, while waiting for new parts to come in.

One option is for the utility to develop a list of spare parts they need to have on each truck at the start of every week (or every month).

The maintenance personnel could refill their trucks at the beginning of the week to ensure that proper supplies are available to finish each job, at least the vast majority of the time.

The list of what to have on the truck could be refined over time as they get used to the amount and type of supplies they typically need.  New supplies can be ordered well in advance of running out so that downtime is greatly reduced.

In this example, based on real situations, the thinking involved is how to better handle maintenance work.  A computer program could be helpful in determining what supplies are used each week and could be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet.

In another example, a computer program can often track maintenance hours spent and more sophisticated programs can tell what types of tasks the maintenance includes.

What the computer program cannot tell you is whether these are the right tasks to be doing or whether it is the right amount to be doing for each task.  That is where asset management thinking comes in.

It is very important to understand that asset management is the thought process, not the computer program.