The Value of Strategic Asset Management
The Centre for Energy Advancement through Technological Innovation (CEATI) has long been known for its excellent work in advancing best practices in maintenance, operations and engineering in electrical utilities. It has featured asset management programs specific to hydro generation, transmission and distribution for years, but recently its members expressed the need for a more strategic approach to this growing discipline.
This prompted CEATI to start its Strategic Asset Management Program, which held its inaugural conference in our home town of Vancouver in early November. Over 100 attendees from all around the world participated in this event, where I had the pleasure of delivering the opening keynote focused on the value of asset management in my role of chair of the Canadian chapter of the Institute of Asset Management (IAM).
The IAM has been collecting evidence in support of the fact that asset management is good for business—an arduous task but well worth the effort. Intuitively most of us will agree that asset management can bring both tangible and intangible benefits to our organizations, but the C-suite and/or the regulator might want to see hard evidence before underwriting an asset management initiative or a quest for ISO55001 certification.
Copperleaf at the 2017 CEATI Strategic Asset Management Program Conference
At the CEATI conference we reviewed the results to date of the three-pronged approach of the IAM: collecting anecdotal evidence from organizations that have adopted asset management; a multi-year study on a large sample of organizations around the world showing the financial value of asset management; and research on the significant leverage that asset management can have on the performance of asset intensive organizations.
The strongest evidence of the strategic importance of asset management came from the speakers at the CEATI conference themselves: for many utilities in the room it was not a matter of “if” they needed an asset management program, it was merely of matter of “when”. Quite a few North American utilities are now firmly on the journey to ISO 55001 certification—something unheard of as recently as last year. Others have chosen to comply with the standard without seeking certification, or to expand on the work their organization has done to adhere to ISO 9001 to include some aspects of asset management. Either way, these utilities are fully convinced that adopting a rigorous asset management system will benefit both their external and internal stakeholders.
As this movement is gathering momentum, Copperleaf is proud to contribute to the success of the asset management programs at many leading utilities in North America and beyond.
For more information on how Copperleaf C55 can help your organization with strategic asset management, please download our brochure.