Dr Nathanial Bavinton, Smart City Coordinator for the City of Newcastle, last night presented at the Newcastle Chapter's March meeting on A Smart City Infrastructure for the future of Newcastle.

With Newcastle moving rapidly to adopt smart city technologies as part of the urban revitalisation of the city, Federal and State governments are investing in the vision for infrastructure to enable a range of new approaches to asset management and service delivery, which will position the city as a technology development testbed.

An interview with Peter Seltsikas, by Linda Kemp, AMCouncil Communications Specialist

At Asset Management Council, our Strategy ’23 is made up of three strategic goals: Strengthen our Asset Management Community; Share Information and Knowledge; and Build Capacity and Capability.

Imagine how my interest soared, then, when I stumbled across information regarding the smart network sensors created and operated by SA Water, being deployed within Sydney Water’s pipe networks. How collaborative, I thought! Two of AM Council’s member corporations proactively sharing knowledge dovetailed into our strategic goals and I therefore immediately arranged an interview with Peter Seltsikas from SA Water. During our chat, I discovered more about the smart sensor’s role at SA Water in terms of maintenance and reliability, as well as the partnership with Sydney Water.

At Newcastle's recent event, David Nicholas, Principal Consultant, Nicholas Corrosion Pty Ltd presented an interesting and engaging presentation on the variations of stainless steels used in domestic and industry applications. 

Name: Raymond Tan, Certified Senior Practitioner in Asset Management (CSAM)

Originally from Singapore and now having lived in New Zealand for close to twenty-six years, Raymond Tan juggles a busy career in asset management and life with three teenage boys. Discover more about Raymond’s asset management journey so far and learn from his insights into how you can really progress your career.

Certified Fellow in Asset Management (CFAM)

Name:Mark Mackenzie

Role:Strategic Consulting Manager

Location:K2 Technology, Perth, WA

Mark Mackenzie's career in asset management has taken him from the Australian Army to some of Australia's leading resource companies. We caught up with him in a one-to-one interview. Read on to discover more about his journey to becoming a leading reliability engineer and learn from his insights into how you can really progress your career.

It was a great turn out for the Asset Management’s AOG Knowledge Forum panel discussion on Superior Asset Performanceyesterday. Thanks to the Panel (Julie Harrison, Michael Judd, Neil Clegg, Mark Mackenzie, Kevin McCafferty) and the audience for the great participation. Check out some more pics taken at the event below:

Sydney chapter had an excellent attendance of 49 to join in a panel discussion on “Digital Engineering in Asset Management” last Thursday.

The key theme of the discussion was exploring “Why aren’t we using DE for whole of life management of assets yet?”

An expert panel of practitioners was convened and chaired by Toby Horstead, NSW Lead - Strategic Asset Management, Jacobs and a Director on the Board of Asset Management Council. The panel members were:

AMCouncil Sydney Chapter was this year invited to assist with the hosting some Field visits (Off-site tours) in conjunction with Engineers Australia’s College of Leadership and Management (CLM) at the Australian Engineering Conference held in Sydney in September.

One of these was at Garden Island Defence Precinct and included a workshop on the topic of Digital Disruption in Construction in the Department of Defence and the other was at the Sydney Opera House.

There’s no need to feel isolated during #shutdown.

Recently, our Sydney Chapter met for the first V-Chat. What’s a V-Chat, you may well ask? A virtual hook-up for asset management members to connect and network, and keep their asset management brain ticking over. Toby Horstead led an informal session discussing the NSW Stimulus package.

Data Mining is one of those topics that conjures up thoughts of modelling a large amount of data without providing significant Asset Management value. Whilst there are a few companies that have invested significant time and energy into modelling a broad range of data to assist in decision making, this does not appaer to be a widespread approach in asset management.

Sydney Chapter kicked off 2020 with its Annual General Meeting at Ausgrid 24-28 Campbell St, Sydney, followed by a presentation from Martin Kerr on ISO 55010: Asset Management – Guidance on the Alignment of Financial and Non-Financial Functions in Asset Management.

George Assaad, a passionate public speaker and expert in in developing, implementing and maintaining management systems for clients across a wide range of industries, engaged our Sydney chapter to be very interested in what some may say could be a dry topic on Certification under ISO 55001 from the Certifying Auditors' Perspectivelast week. The chapter may not have had an as energised audit speaker prior! George made sure that members were across the requirement that It’s ‘their’ decision to make sure that the right Asset Management decisions that are made are in line with the requirements of the ISO 55000 series standards.

Jim Plume, Director of BuildingSmart Australasia last night presented at the Sydney Chapter's March meeting on Building Information Modelling (BIM) Requirements for Asset Management. With the focus of BIM being most heavily associated with the initial stages of an asset's life the audience were curious to see what BIM offers for the duration of its life. Living and changing requirements were presented as the 'DNA' which must be the thread through the whole life cycle and be open information to all relevant stakeholders.

A successful AGM was held by our AMCouncil Sydney chapter last Thursday. On behalf of the continuing committee members wewelcome Stephen Poropatto the AMC Sydney Chapter 2019committee! It will be great to have a new face (?) on the team as we continue our strong growth in the chapter.

A great attendence of approximately 45 at Sydney's technical and networking session last week. It was noted that Mark Ragusa from Ausgrid has filled the remaining vacant committee membership position, and we welcome him on board.

The Chapter then heard from Lucio Favotto, Principal Manager Infrastructure and Fleet Services, Transport for NSW. Lucio provided an insightful presentation on the following - Asset Management across a multi-modal asset portfolio - Transport for NSW (TfNSW).

Sydney chapter had a good turnout for a presentation on “Long Term Investment Planning” for Sydney Water by Barry Mcdonnell and Tim Boyer, on the 20th November 2019.

Barry set the scene by outlining the challenges faced by Sydney Water in meeting the future demands for a growing Sydney:

The AMC Sydney Chapter conducted its annual site visit on the morning of Thursday 15^th August. This year we had the privilege of being hosted for a behind the scenes tour of the iconic Sydney Opera House (SOH). SOH is an asset with a design life of 250 years, which opened in 1973 and hence is approaching 50 years old.

Sydney chapter members enjoyed hearing some detailed insights last night, 17 May, into the application of Asset Management to the power distribution industry during a presentation by Murray Chandler - Ausgrid's Head of Asset Management Strategy, Performance & Innovation.

Sydney Chapter has thrown back to a meeting format from the 1990’s in its June meeting to take on “Bring a Problem’ night. With one very large complex problem presented from the team at John Holland Group asking the question, ‘How does an organisation that covers a large regional footprint with complex assets (e.g., Large Utility etc) best engage the large asset delivery workforce to ensure ownership of the desired outcomes?’ See the problem submitted in visual format here.

We're excited to announce that registrations are now open for this year's symposium! This year's symposium will focus on Asset Management in Government and aims to bring representatives from various state governments together to share experiences and challenges in Asset Management and provide a forum for information sharing.

Some items on the program include: