In the previous post titled "Best Asset Management Practice — Improving Preventive Maintenance", Ross shared his insights from his consulting experiences in New Zealand. Heather continued the discussion. Heather: I would just mention that one of the things to think about with your system when you get into preventative maintenance is you can start watching over time how preventative … [Read more...]
Level of Service Issues in Water Utilities Asset Management
A participant asked about the level of service issues as they manage their water utility assets. Please read below what Heather and Ross explained. Heather: Well, my take on that is there are a few that are more set by regulatory nature that you, know you want to make sure that you’re meeting all of the Safe Water Drinking Act requirements, all of the state's requirements and then … [Read more...]
Doing Small Successful Steps in Water Utility Asset Management
Ross: And Heather, I met the gentleman at Albuquerque who wrote that and the thing that impressed me was he was a private individual. He was just helping out. He’s I think a voluntary custodian for his community of the water system. And if he wasn’t 75, he was that sort that age if not a bit older and I was just really impressed with him. Here he was applying his life experience to help … [Read more...]
Asset Management Plans for Small Water Systems
Ross: And Heather look one of the things we’ve found here that are very easy when you’re a small system to look at a 200 or 300-page asset management plan that’s being produced by LA or New York or a major system. And that’s just ridiculous. We can’t do that and the sure answer is you don’t need to do that. I’m just thinking about that asset plan that you sent me a copy of from a really … [Read more...]
How to Convince a Small System to Have an Asset Management Plan?
Do you have any advice on how to convince a small system that they need to have an asset management plan? Heather: My advice is, that it’s very important to work with them on whatever their biggest problem is and show them how asset management can help them solve that issue as a way to get them bought in. For example, if their biggest problem is many many pipe breaks, then think … [Read more...]
Asset Management is Cost-Effective and Sustainable Solution for Infrastructure Crises
Ross: And I think too Heather, just clicked back to that slide from Toledo, Ohio because they've had the "Do not drink (notice)" for the entire population due to that. They’re getting through the treatment plant. And yes that’s a different cause of the problem from a break or the Boston one but the issue is when you got "do not drink" notice out for an entire city, there’s massive … [Read more...]
Criticality and Overall Cost in Water Utilities Asset Management
Heather: And the other thing to think about is, different breaks have different criticality to a water utility. So a small break on a side street that it’s just tricking down the road, impacting a couple of customers is not the same as a major water main break that impacts the whole town causes major traffic disruptions, hurts the road, floods out a street, causes a sinkhole. I mean there … [Read more...]
Holistic Impact of Infrastructure Management Actions to the Utility Community
Why should the utility worry about the cost of pipe breaks that don’t affect the utility? For example, blocking traffic. Dawn: This came whenever we have the earlier discussion about the cost were associated with the water line breaks in LA, and so you know you’re talking about the various costs that were associated with that water line break. And so the question is, "Why should the water … [Read more...]
Three Important Sources of Asset Management Knowledge
To remind webinar participants of the people and organizations responsible for the "Ask-the-Experts" webinar series, Heather presented the "Contact Information" slide (see image above). Heather says: You can see, mine, Dawn and Ross’s contact information there if you have questions following the webinar. And we have three resources that I just wanna point out to you. Environmental … [Read more...]
Best Way to Tracking Operation and Maintenance Cost
"Based on experience at different places, what is the best way to track O & M (operation and maintenance) cost?" Ross replies: So just to our listeners there, I got the job of rewriting the Asset Information System section of the International Infrastructure Management Manual back in 2011 when it was updated. Thus, there’s an area of specialist consulting expertise recognized for by … [Read more...]
Asset Management Information Systems Discussion and Overview Guidance
In relation to the question on the best way to track O & M cost, Heather gave guidance and discussion on the asset management information system. Heather: I was just going to mention that you know it’s something that comes up a lot if the question is also getting at, you know, “What kind of computer program do you want to have?” And it sounds like a little bit of that was in there of … [Read more...]
Asset Valuation and Insurance Issues in Infrastructure Asset Management
A webinar participant asked the questions below: "Based on experience at different places, what is the best way to track O & M (operation and maintenance) cost, and how to estimate the asset value, depreciation, all the equipment refurbishments for replacement pricing and insurance purposes?" Heather asked Ross to tackle the question. Ross proceeded to answer the second part of the … [Read more...]