Asset Management: A Visionary,
Responsible Approach to Utah's
Infrastructure Needs
from On the Move, Spring (March) Quarter 1999, Volume 12, Number 1
With the growth Utah is facing, the impact on towns, cities, counties and the State's infrastructure
system is substantial. Existing streets, roads and highways along with the sidewalks and traffic
control elements (signs, signals, roadside safety features and pavement markings) are being taxed
far beyond their original design life. In addition, the demand for additional facilities with higher
customer expectations has placed a major burden on all those responsible for maintaining,
improving and providing new infrastructure facilities. This burden rests on the shoulders of state
and local elected officials, public administrators, public servants and ultimately the customer (the
public) who demand these services.
This infrastructure burden and the challenge it presents requires a strategic and visionary approach
along with an integration of efforts and resources by all responsible entities involved. The
concept and principles of Asset Management are being embraced by the American Association of
State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to meet this challenge on a national scale.
It would require $1.25 trillion in current dollars to replace our nations deteriorating and
over-taxed highway system. When the costs are totaled for state and local streets, roads and
other facilities (i.e. water and sewer systems), the total value is beyond measure.
What is Asset Management?
Asset management is a systematic process of maintaining, upgrading, and operating physical
assets cost-effectively. It combines engineering principles with sound business practices and
economic theory and provides tools to facilitate a more organized, logical approach to
decision-making. Further, asset management provides an integrated framework for handling both
short- and long-range planning.
Goals of Asset Management
Asset management provides decision makers both quantitative and qualitative data and
information on an organization's resources and the current and future performance of their
physical facilities. Asset management aims to:
- Enhance decision makers' knowledge both of inventory and of asset value.
- Instill a sense of ownership regarding assets at the operator and manager levels.
- Recognize data information as a "corporate asset."
- Build credibility and improve decision making.
- Encourage decision makers and managers to "think globally, but act locally."
- Provide opportunities to reevaluate standards, policies and customer service levels.
- Encourage a strategic perspective that: replaces turf battles with teamwork; provides training
and improves communication; ties resource allocations to savings from replacement;
recognizes people as assets; targets system user needs; integrates asset management with asset
development; and, establishes standard processes and protocols.
- Recognize life-cycle costs, including user costs and benefits.
- Increase public safety and reduce tort liability.
Attributes of an Asset Management System
An asset management system reflects the particular "vision" and "culture" of the organization,
whether a public or private-sector entity. Regardless of the specific business of an organization,
an asset management system:
- establishes a common understanding of performance measures and criteria;
- provides understandable results in a user-friendly environment;
- is customer-focused;
- is mission-driven;
- is accessible at many levels within the organization;
- is flexible;
- is linked to technical analysis, decision-making, and budgetary processes; and,
- facilitates the education of users and decision makers.
Why is Asset Management Useful?
Asset management offers significant benefits, including the ability to optimize network- or
system-level improvements and investment strategies in addition to analyzing individual projects.
Asset management lets decision makers readily assess trade-offs among various policies,
components, and methods and use a common yardstick for judging projects.
Benefits to Owners/Operators
There are two main benefit categories of an asset management system for public- and
private-sector owners and operators: (1) the system facilitates better information and decisions,
and (2) it increases productivity. Asset management systems
- improve program quality;
- improve information and access to information;
- help decision makers identify and focus on key issues;
- facilitate economic assessment of trade-offs;
- provide improved documentation of decisions;
- facilitate communication;
- provide improved information on return on investment and understand the value of
investments;
- improve the cost-effectiveness of investment strategies;
- reduce both short- and long-term costs; and,
- streamline the decision-making process.
Benefits to the Customer
Ultimately, an asset management system benefits the customer or end-user by providing improved
convenience; improved service (i.e. comfort, reliability, safety, in a transportation context);
savings passed on from the owner/operator to the customer; and more accessible facilities and
services due to more efficient operations (and, in a transportation context, less construction and
maintenance disruption).
Several local and state agencies within Utah have begun to implement the concepts and principles
of asset management as evidenced by the pavement, sign, and sidewalk management systems that
are currently in use. These existing systems have registered considerable benefits in terms of
productivity and customer service and offer the building blocks upon which to build more
comprehensive and integrated asset management systems to address the infrastructure challenges
of the 21st century.
In view of the many benefits to be gained from the implementation of asset management,
especially at the local level, a special session for elected officials, public works directors,
managers, and supervisors is being offered at Road School, April 21, 1999, in St. George, Utah.
This session will be followed with informative sessions on examples of asset management
practices as applied to pavements, signs, sidewalks, and other critical infrastructure elements.
You are encouraged to participate in these sessions to learn more about asset management. For
more information, please call the Utah T² Center at 1-800-822-8878.
(Acknowledgment--excerpts taken from FHWA RD-97-046 Asset Management)