Asset management (AM) planning has traditionally operated at three levels: strategic; tactical and operational. Asset infrastructure organisations need to have continuously updated plans for all three, based on internal and external issues. How these plans integrate and manage short, medium and long-term risks to safeguard asset portfolios and service levels for customers is key. Although issues are not confined to a single planning level, at the forefront of AM planning today are managing and adapting to climate change risk (strategic), improving resilience (tactical) and forward budget uncertainty and managing cost increases (operational).

James Elliott CEng MICE FCIHT MIAM, director at Elliott Asset Management Ltd (EAM) and partner at Alium Blue

1 Watch the key asset management planning drivers and potential bottlenecks

Within AM planning, there are both drivers and bottlenecks to consider. For example, a key driver is asset stewardship, essentially looking after existing assets with effective maintenance. This process enables a move from cyclic (planned) and reactive maintenance to a more preventative approach. This enables asset life to be extended and requires good asset data sets and ‘what if?’ AM planning capability.

Another key driver is asset lifecycle renewal, or replacing assets when they reach the end of their useful life. This process involves understanding how assets perform and behave (deteriorate) and scenario planning to optimise renewal programmes to minimise customer disruption. An example is moving from single asset replacement programmes to cross-asset renewal programmes and using block road closures.

Improving efficiency of asset operations is crucial. Effective asset management planning should embrace innovation and continuous improvement, for example digital solutions and automation, to make maintenance safer and more cost-effective.

None of this is easy. One bottleneck is funding annualisation and uncertainty. Strategic road organisations such as National Highways have five-year funding, allowing targeted rolling investment. However, local highway authorities are subject to annual approval, which dictates spend profile and, in an effort to use up budget, can lead to catching up with spend at the end of a financial year.

Skills (capabilities) and capacity of the workforce can also be a problem. There are macro level pressures from competing national level schemes, for example HS2, which soak up highway capacity. But also local authority constraints of retaining and attracting technical staff.

2 Technical challenges and cost management needs are key

It’s important to have good data. Most authorities now understand that asset data needs to be managed on a par with other asset groups such as pavements, structures, lighting and drainage. Having confidence in data gives confidence in scenario planning and budget requests. To achieve this requires appropriate skills, system tools, plus developing asset data strategies and plans and performance-based frameworks. This suite of skills can ensure data is fit for purpose and allows the development of metrics such as a Data Quality Index (DQI) based on currency, completeness and performance targets. You’ll need to collect operational data to refresh asset data sets, refine deterioration assumptions and feed into lifecycle analysis.

3 Net Zero commitments should be at the heart of every decision

Net zero commitments are now embedded in all Government and authority strategies. They should be the single most important external factor for AM plans. As a traditional industry – slow to change and predominantly client-led – highways might have been dragged into the Net Zero discussion, but it has a lot to offer.

To some, Net Zero doesn’t go far enough and Net Gain is the better aspiration. How lifecycles are being managed and planned include at the base level an understanding of carbon. Several pilot schemes have been delivered to prove carbon reduction levels. As the main use of carbon occurs when assets are replaced, thinking is changing from the traditional extending an assets life on the basis of whole life cost to whole life thinking, which includes cost, risk and carbon. 

4 Resilience is now a key element in asset management planning

The need for resilience is a growing demand and within asset plans, each asset group should have resilience considerations. Managing resilient assets is a strategic requirement in itself and requires different skills according to whether you are dealing with highway design, flood risk or sustainability. Those skills should all work together to develop predictive data-based scenarios and forward adaptation and improvement plans.

CIHT’s Green Blue Infrastructure (GBI) policy group was specifically set up to understand the benefits (social, environmental and economic) and constraints to embedding GBI in authorities. What we have found is a GBI knowledge gap and a disconnect between authority departments as GBI proposals move between planning, development management and highways teams to implement and maintain GBI assets.

5 Asset management planners need to factor in global market conditions

Asset managers have always had to deal with uncertainty and what impact it may have on the highway and transportation sector. The role of asset managers is to develop realistic scenarios for decision-makers. This situation relies on the continuous cycle of strategic, tactical and operational planning, which considers these uncertainties together with data and system tools used to model the range of ‘causes and effects’.

Instead of clients asking asset managers ‘What budget do I need to maintain assets in a steady state?’, they are now asking ‘What are the impacts if I don’t replace this asset now?’ in order to make key decisions on asset investment.

James Elliott was in conversation with John Challen.