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Welcome to Special Reports
Welcome to the May edition of Special Reports, American City and County's newest e-mail newsletter focusing on specific subjects ranging from customer relationship management (CRM) to fleet management.
Special Reports will be published from time to time throughout 2003. This issue's theme is using Asset Management Systems.
If you have any comments or suggestions for topics, please contact Bill Wolpin, Editorial Director at bwolpin@primediabusiness.com
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Asset Management Systems
By John DeWitt
Recently, sewer maintenance personnel in Escondido, Calif., were scratching their heads over a series of odor complaints from various locations across the city of 130,000 near San Diego. At first, the complaints appeared unrelated, but when the geographic coordinates of each incident were entered into the city's new computer system for infrastructure maintenance and asset management, the heart of the problem was revealed.
"All of a sudden, we could see a geographic pattern, a certain sewer line that was causing the problem," explains Lucky Bishop, asset manager for Escondido. "We had been going out and dealing with [odor complaints] all over town but were unable to make the connection. Once we made the connection on the computer screen, we were able to deal with the problem in a holistic fashion."
Escondido and other local governments -- ranging in size from rural Jackson County, Mo., to Houston -- are implementing computer systems to help them address the critical challenges of managing and maintaining costly, often aging, infrastructure. Asset management systems combine detailed geographic information, work order management, wireless mobile computers and databases that catalog items such as fire hydrants, street signs and water valves. Armed with that information, local governments are finding that they are:
- Proactive rather than reactive.
The system allows governments to set maintenance schedules instead of repairing and replacing items when crises occur or residents complain;
- Accountable for results.
The system accurately assesses the infrastructure's value and maintenance costs -- essential for complying with Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) guidelines; and,
- Better equipped for the job.
Asset management systems help supervisors and workers perform their jobs more effectively, which is why workers helped create the Escondido system.
"The public works staff was doing most of the requesting for an asset management system," Bishop explains. "It was music to management's ears that the staff wanted asset management, but it was a collaborative effort."
Bishop says the bottom-up initiative to replace the city's aging work-order management system was essential to the adoption of its new asset management technologies. "There is a costing aspect [to the new system], so if this had been dictated by management, it would have caused fear of losing jobs," he explains.
By taking a collaborative approach with field personnel, Houston found "a very receptive user community" when city government implemented its infrastructure asset management system, according to Aida de Hoyos, systems consultant for public works and engineering for Houston. "We have a lot of communication," de Hoyos says. She says Houston even has implemented "service level agreements between [technical staff] and the user community specifying that we will provide continuous support to users in the field."
Local governments have used maintenance work-order tracking systems for many years. However, today's infrastructure asset management systems integrate previously disparate technologies while adding new capabilities, some never before possible. A comprehensive asset management system typically includes work-order management software and a relational database integrating several technologies such as:
- A geographic information system (GIS) that provides a detailed computer-based map of the entire city or county combined with global positioning system (GPS) devices that can locate assets with precision;
- A call center or similar system that captures and tracks service requests received by local government agencies;
- Mobile computers, such as laptops and handheld devices, with wireless Internet connections to the central asset management system, so that personnel can use the system while in the field; and,
- Digital cameras for still and video photography of the actual infrastructure.
Proactive Infrastructure Maintenance
Asset management systems can help local government agencies shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to maintaining their physical infrastructure. "Most local governments simply fix problems -- repair a road, replace a bridge -- but basically don't maintain their infrastructure," says Ali Roohanirad, deputy director of public works for Jackson County, Mo. "The concept behind asset management is to help local governments maintain infrastructure. It costs $15,000 to maintain a road but $200,000 to replace it. And roads will fail after ten years if they aren't maintained."
Bishop says his city's asset management system has helped Escondido take an aggressive approach to maintaining its water and sewer systems, which often are neglected until a major problem arises. For example, "one of our supervisors [asked me to show him] all of our sewer lines installed before 1950," Bishop explains. "With a quick query, he was able to see them."
"He realized that all of these old lines were concrete and needed to be inspected. Many were accidents waiting to happen," Bishop says. "[Using the asset management system], we very quickly put together a capital improvement plan, complete with pictures and locations, so city management could clearly see the need to fund a project, and our engineering staff could quickly and properly design [it]."
Accurate Accounting, Clear Accountability
Most asset management systems account for the work performed for infrastructure maintenance and repair. Each task can be tracked by the individual worker and asset, which produces accurate data for varied functions such as measuring the cost and time required to complete a repair and tracking the history of repairs on a particular street or sewer line.
Roohanirad says GASB Statement No. 34 reporting requirements mandate a sophisticated approach to asset management. "GASB No. 34 forces governments to show the value of their assets," he explains. "Governments have to be able to show how they are maintaining infrastructure on their financial statements. It also helps them with their bond rating."
Asset management also can help governments be more accountable in other areas. In Houston, for example, the city's infrastructure asset management system is integrated with its 311 call center system, which creates a single number for residents to call for non-emergency complaints -- such as reporting infrastructure problems. Using a name or service request number, residents are able to track the status of their complaint until it is resolved.
"The 311 system generates a service request and interfaces with the infrastructure management system," de Hoyos says. "An investigator checks out the problem and if it's not immediately resolved, a work order is created within the infrastructure management system."
The ability to track the cost of managing its assets is critical to Escondido's efforts to control its expenditures. "We have a managed competitiveness philosophy here," Bishop says. "We cost out reading meters, fixing potholes, etc., and we compare those costs with what the private sector would charge us to do the same thing. There are many things we don't do any more because the private sector can do it more cheaply."
A Tool for Field Use
According to Bishop, Escondido's investment of $100,000 in its infrastructure asset management system has led to more efficient and effective work at all levels of city government, from elected officials to field personnel. "There's great information for managers and council people who need it to make decisions. It's very quick, very easy for us to give information to them," Bishop says. "We simply couldn't do the analysis before."
Using the combination of geographic data and GPS devices, field personnel can quickly locate an underground asset such as a sewer or water valve. Moreover, mobile computers give field personnel instant access to GIS maps, the repair history of individual infrastructure assets and a way to enter new data.
In Houston, approximately 300 city employees are users of its infrastructure asset management system, including field personnel equipped with laptops. "We have crews with wireless laptops 24/7," de Hoyos says. "They don't have to physically come into the office to get work orders. We're also in the process of deploying [wireless handheld] PDAs. With PDAs, they can put it in a belt so it's a lot more convenient for the inspector."
Houston's field personnel were quick to adopt the system when it originally was implemented in 1999, de Hoyos adds. "The guys are becoming very computer savvy because they realized it would facilitate their jobs," she says. "Now they're the ones asking when they are going to get their PDAs."
The author, John DeWitt, is a business consultant and writer based in New York.
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