Minefield of Information

Asset Condition Assessment – Information Sources

There seems to be a minefield of information, but it should be available and can come from many different sources, such as:

So often, these people have years of experience, knowledge, and information about the assets. If harvested and recorded carefully, this information can become a treasure chest of valuable data to assist us in our future planning initiatives.

Other sources of information to assist in the review of the performance and condition of the asset can be

• Interviews with Key Client Resources
• Maintenance History and Records
• Life Expectancy
• Depreciation Factors
• Criticality Factor of Asset
• Management Information Reporting

We now need to implement processes or procedures to access further information.

Information needs work to access it, and often it will require

• PMs and/or Predictive Tasks to be conducted
• Ongoing assessment inspections to completely and accurately capture information and then document and store all related and pertinent information for easy access and review at any future point.

This is needed to provide a replacement or rehabilitation value to evaluate the assets remaining life.

Asset Condition Assessment – Structural Deficiencies

Performance, however, is only the starting point. The Asset Condition also may indicate the existence of structural defects, which can drive progressive failures.

We also need to assess and understand what the rate of deterioration is. Best condition by itself provides only marginal insight into Operational Performance about capacity, availability, reliability, and maintainability

Physical Structural Condition

The current structural state of the asset is the result of the interaction of

• Usage
• Age
• Maintenance – good or bad
• Design
• Manufacturing Quality
• Initial Construction
• Manufacturing Management
• Management of the operating Environment

Operational and Process Condition

We need to ascertain whether the assets are meeting operational requirements for now and in the future.

• What are the levels of service and the levels of Maintenance
• Is the asset performing according to specifications and expectations, and what about technical obsolescence, where new and improved assets are being introduced
• Do we have best practice policies in place for maintenance and operations, and do we have historical information available?
• How effectively is the design meeting current and expanding needs and process efficiency?
• Does it provide ease of restoring service (Mean time to repair – MTTR)?

As we can now see, Asset Condition Assessment is not necessarily an easy exercise to complete, but it is a critical one because it encompasses all our plans for improvement and cost savings

Let’s now move on to the subject of Planning and Funding Strategies.

For more information, email us at info@strobe-al.co.za or visit www.strobe-al.co.za