Asset Management may seem complicated, but it really involves only 5 pieces of information, 4 of which are evidence-based. I hope you enjoy this.

1. 5 Components of Asset Management WA Integrated Asset Management, 21 November 2016
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5 Components of Asset Management
Hein Aucamp
WA Integrated Asset Management
WA Integrated Asset Management is an
Infrastructure Asset Management company
serving Local Government and the mining
sector based in Perth, Western Australia.
www.waiam.com.au
Why are we working harder on managing infrastructure?
If you have been involved in managing infrastructure in Local Government since about 2007, you
must have noticed that we have been doing a lot more work. We have attended new training courses.
We have been writing reports and completing spread-sheets. And our duties are spanning at least two
departments: Engineering and Finance are both involved.
So why are we doing this extra work, the work called Asset Management?
Asset Management is about evidence-based long term sustainability
Asset Management involves gathering reliable information about assets, then using that information to
determine the sustainability of a Council’s infrastructure operations, and then making sustainability
part of the Council’s Long Term Financial and Strategic Plans.
The requirement that the information must be reliable means that it must be based on evidence.
This evidence-based approach (see figure below) is at the centre of the best practices recommended
by IPWEA and contained in their standard documentation, notably the IIMM and the AIFMG.

2. 5 Components of Asset Management WA Integrated Asset Management, 21 November 2016
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And of course these documents are interrelated. The Financial and Strategic Plans feed back into the
Asset Management Plan as the Council converges on a sustainable level of service at which assets can
be provided to the community.
Only 5 Components in Asset Management information
It may be come as a surprise that the information driving the documents has only 5 components, the
first 4 of which are evidence-based.
This is how the 5 components were described at a NAMS.PLUS training workshop in Perth in 2009:
1. What assets do we have, and how much of each?
a. Types.
b. Useful lives.
c. Conditions and or ages, to give renewal date.
2. What is the cost to run the assets, and at what level of service?
3. How much are we able to spend on the assets?
4. What is the gap?
a. The gap is usually a consequence of the useful lives.
b. The gap can be viewed either as a funding gap or a service level gap.
5. What will we do about the gap?
a. Adjust funding.
b. Adjust service levels.
We were told at the same workshop that these 5 pieces of information can summarised on one page.
The remainder of the Asset Management Plan really only gives additional detail.
Because the first 4 of these pieces of information are evidence-based, you should be able to defend
your assertions by appealing to an asset register entry, or to a field measurement, or to an accounting
entry, or to some other record, or to an observation, or to a calculation.
Bottom line: sustainability
Ultimately, Local Government is able to provide only those assets that can be funded by rates and
supplemented by additional grants. As ratepayers, we receive the level of service that we are willing
to pay for – and perhaps a bit more from other funding sources.
Sustainability studies indicate that by working smarter, Local Government can make the available
funds go further.
And the formal term for working smarter in infrastructure is Asset Management.