AMP Blog

Asset Management Plan (Part 4 of 4): 3 Ways to Sustain Value from Your Asset Management Plan

Sep 22, 2020

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” – Atomic Habits, James Clear

In the previous parts of our Asset Management Plan Series, we listed 13 key elements that determine an Asset Management Plan (AMP) success, discussing different stakeholder requirements an organisation should meet with our AMP and how. Once we have unlocked the value from our Asset Management Plan, it is time to ensure we do not lose the value we have realised. This brings us to our final part of this series, which is how to sustain value from your Asset Management Plan. Asset intensive organisations on ISO55001 aligned pathways can hit a wall in sustaining value from their Asset Management Plan. ISO55001 sets a platform to unlock value, but it takes more than ISO55001 to sustain value. Therefore, in this blog, we will talk about 3 ways an Asset Management Plan can sustain value for your assets. Let’s get started…

Quick Links

1. Organisational Learning

– Asset Industry Bodies

– Formal Learning

2. Continuous Improvement

– Audit Programmes

– Innovation Platforms

3. Risk Management

1. Sustain Value from AMP via Organisational Learning

In asset intensive sectors, we all know how important a reliable asset base is to an organisation’s success. An important component for attaining sustainable asset reliability as an asset-intensive business is their workforce. When you provide good training and empower your employees, you promote vested interest in the organisation.

“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Richard Branson

Asset Industry Bodies

Keeping your organisation in a state of continual learning enables readiness for your organisation to respond to changes and requirements. The reason why is that in a competitive marketplace, sustaining that position requires keeping up with the learnings industry bodies provide. Within your Asset Management, it is then necessary to set organisational learning target if the effectiveness of meeting your objectives is important to you. Asset industry bodies such as the Asset Management Council and Engineers Australia set excellent asset frameworks that can be applied. Further, the ISO55001 sets a benchmark for asset management. But for most organisations to retain and/or improve the capability generally, Asset Management consultants or training organisations need to unpack these frameworks and help you apply these to your company.

Formal Learning

Many a time we hear the phrase “what if we train them and they leave” and “what if we don’t train them and they stay”. This too is important with training for asset management and your AMP. Your Asset Management Plan needs to continually build the capability of your employees. Work with your Learning and Development and/or your human resource teams to build:

Internal asset management learning content
Pathways of external courses (short courses, tertiary studies) ranging from certificate, diploma and graduate-level course.

You need to consider the costs of recruitment and onboarding on a regular basis will soon outweigh supporting your people through formal learning programs. Therefore, to sustain the value of your AMP, it is time to set your formal learning goals.

2. Sustain Value from AMP via Continuous Improvement

Applying continuous improvement to your asset management plan is achieved by 2 continuous improvement tools: Audit and Innovation.

Audit Programmes (Asset Maturity Assessments)

Auditing is fundamental to sustaining asset management value and continuous improvement. Without measuring the effectiveness of asset management, value can neither be improved nor sustained. Auditing ideally needs to have a 3 layered approach:

Internal audit: Assessing internally you Asset Management system strategically and the Asset Management practices on a tactical and operational level. Audit Reports from these audits needs to be communicated to the executive leadership team to build their awareness of the maturity of asset management across the organisation.
Certification audits: Ideally working under a certified asset system gives the extra support your Asset Management Plan needs to stay aligned to ISO55001 and therefore sustaining value via the ISO55001 prescribed activities. Typically, this should occur on an annual basis, with a more thorough audit every 3 years doing recertification.
3rd Party audits: Different to internal and certification audits, a 3rd party audit, usually by an asset management consultant will help you understand how well the “maturity” of your Asset Management Plan is progressing [add AMP Service page link]. This is important as the internal audit can be subjective and certification audit may only say if you are meeting the standard, not your progress in maturity.

Innovation Platforms

Aligned with your Risk & Opportunity assessment or risk register, an innovation platform is critical to sustaining value from your Asset Management Plan. As a continuous improvement tool, innovation done well opens up the line of sight of your operations to top leadership. As a result, it enables effective communication and adoption of innovative as well as optimising opportunities for your asset management system and likewise the Asset Management Plan. Assigning a key role and/or function to your innovation plan ensures the coordination of the ideas in your organisation are transferred into action.

3. Sustain Value from AMP via Risk Management

The backstop to sustaining value of your Asset Management Plan is risk management. Risk essentially is identifying events that can negatively impact your asset management objectives being achieved that apportioning the right level of controls to manage the risk. Underpinned by a Risk Management Plan, an “Active Risk Register” is a key component of effective risk management. It is generally located in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) platform that interfaces with both your asset register and corporate risk register. Having an interfacing and interconnected risk register enables the assets you identify as critical in your Asset Management Plan to have the necessary oversight from top leadership to ensure that the controls and resources for those assets are applied effectively. Further an active risk register applied effectively will ensure the resources you need to apply your Asset Management Plan are identified and applied such as:

Contractor management/procurement
HSEQ, and Risk
Document control
Asset Information Management
Information Technology (ICT)

What About Your Experience of Implementing an Asset Management Plan?

With value sustained, you can have the ISO55000 Asset Management fundamental of Assurance firmly positioned and bring asset maturity to your organisation. Now we finished our 4-part Asset Management Plan series. We hope you enjoyed this series and would love to hear your feedback and your successes in applying our advice to your asset management plans in the comments below.

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Catch up on other articles in the AMP series

Part 1: 13 Key Elements of a Successful AMP Implementation (strategy, activities, support)

Part 2: How to Meet Stakeholder Requirements with Your AMP (primary, industry, and regulatory)

Part 3: 5 Ways to Unlock Value for Your Assets from an AMP

Part 4: 3 Ways to Sustain Value from Your Asset Management Plan [THIS BLOG]

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