The WA Chapter finished the technical sessions year with a fantastic evening attracting interest from 65 asset management practitioners with which the session exceeded all expectations - standing room only! A great show of interest and support for Asset Management in the West.

After a brief introduction, Sandy Dunn shared the difference between Asset Management capability, compliance and maturity. Next was Ernst Krauss sharing his research on understanding the value of asset management. Keen inerest and discussions continued into the following networking opportunity, where most people stayed to catch up with old acquaintances and to make some new ones. Please enjoy some snaps taken at the event below.

Only a short two-minute walk from Asset Management Council’s office lays the Oakleigh Railway Station, the latest station to get the go-ahead from the Victorian government for an upgrade.

Asset management is everywhere, but it’s exciting to see it so close to home.

We are currently experiencing the largest ever construction build of infrastructure in many states across the country. Australia’s focus on delivering projects in the built environment as a pathway to recovery post COVID, means delivering excellence in infrastructure, roads, construction and transport. Understanding, managing, and optimizing the asset base sustainably in this environment is essential for success. 

A collaborative partnership has been established between the Asset Management Council (AMCouncil) and the Centre for Professional Engineering Education (CPEE)  to create a course to meet current industry needs delivering best practice, resulting in the launch of the new four unit Graduate Certificate in Asset Management in 2021. This program directly addresses upskilling in the area of infrastructure and roads, with the two core units being 'Asset Management Principles' and 'Economics of Financial Management'.

Great presentations in our Melbourne session last Thursday as Sean Reeves spoke to intelligent asset management and how asset management is more than just data collection. 

Fantastic news from NSW as Treasury publishes the NSW Government asset management policy, adopted by the NSW public sector on 31st October. 

The Asset Management Council, led by our director Toby Horstead, has been working closely with Infrastructure NSW and the NSW Government AM Community of Practice to prepare agencies for the release of the policy.

In 2020, the world was surprised and ill-prepared by the coronavirus pandemic. Asset management, which at its core involves mitigating risk, stood poised with key guidelines that proved helpful in many countries’ recovery phase. From there, we can see some upcoming trends in asset management for 2021 as researched by Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development.

• Internet of Things (IoT)

This year, it will be critical for businesses to better leverage the use of IoT. With many employees predicted to continue working from home into at least the first half of 2021, the IoT will help keep staff connected and engaged, productive and accountable. Also, intelligent systems, once implemented will help reduce overall costs to the business and, importantly, will transform your maintenance practices from reactive to proactive.

The Asset Management Workshop in Gippsland was organised by the School of Science, Engineering and Information Technology’s Resources Engineering and Technology Group and supported by the Gippsland Chapter of the Asset Management Council (AMCouncil) and Engineering Network Gippsland (ENG) on Tuesday 11^th Dec from 3pm to 5pm. This workshop had 30 registered delegates from industry, professional bodies and FedUni and feedback received from delegates was outstanding.

On Thursday August 17, Transport for NSW and Asset Management Council successfully hosted the Auburn Maintenance Centre technical site tour.

The Auburn Maintenance Centre is a train depot that is responsible for the maintenance of the Sydney Trains A set fleet operated by Downer Rail. It was an excellent opportunity to view and get up to date with this amazing facility.

AMCouncil August e-news is out now, packed with all the latest and greating AMCouncil happenings and news from the past month, including an announcement of an upcoming mentoring program which you have the opportunity to be a mentor to a woman in transport! Check your inboxes to read all the latest or view it here.

If you would like to receive monthly newsletters and to be kept in the loop with all that's happening in the AMC, you can subscribe here.

Back to basics: Explaining Reliability, Availability, and the meaning of “life” was the topic of the inaugural YAMP Sydney Chapter event last Wednesday evening for Sydney AMC members and guests by very experienced practitioner and trainer, Phil Clarke.

Discover how an Australian utilities company used big data-driven insights to optimise lifecycle planning, budgeting and strategic management. The solution was easy to use and easy to understand, enabling the organisation to proactively identify problematic or costly assets prior to asset failure and to use predicted future costs to inform annual maintenance activity. Discover how the intelligent allocation of limited resources and the accurate forecasting of future asset costs provide huge benefits.

Read more here. (This content is available for members only, see our affordable membership options here).

Today’s tough financial climate and market competition requires organisations to improve their productivity and asset performance with less resources and capital. Discover how Asset Performance Management (APM) strives to use the increasingly large amounts of data to help asset management professionals make better decisions for their businesses.

For many decades, asset intensive organisations have been collecting data to improve asset performance. Over the last few years, the term ‘Big Data’ has been referred to repeatedly by executives, practitioners, and vendors across industry forums, online blogs, and social media. Recently, the level of interest has shifted from simply understanding ‘what Big Data is’ and more towards ‘How can we use Big Data to improve asset performance and revenue’.

Read more here. (This content is available for members only, see our affordable membership options here).

Big Data is a hot topic - there's an increasing trend to focus on the value that data analytics can bring to business. But despite the buzz, there is very little attention being paid to the quality of all this data. Discover just how important quality is when it comes to your data and learn about a simple four step solution to improving data quality.

With so many new tools and software being developed to provide 'silver bullet' solutions, from advanced dashboard and reporting to graphic visualisation and predictive capabilities, it's important to keep in mind the challenges to managing all this information, and the dangers that inaccurate or poor quality data can pose to your business. Here's how to avoid potential losses and incorrect decisions being made due to dodgy data.

Read more here. (This content is available for members only, see our affordable membership options here).

Asset-owning organisations seek to optimise lifecycle planning, budgeting and strategic management. To read about a case study that used Big Data Analytics to provide a large Australian utilities company with data-driven insights that help them to achieve these key objectives for their geographically-diverse high-value asset portfolio, please visit here.

Thursday saw the last Technical seminar for 2019 for the Brisbane Chapter, the session was focused on the heart of any Asset management System, and that is the people. With two eminent speakers in Dr Monique Beedles and Yvonne Pengilly, the audience were provided with many thought provoking points ranging from career development and competencies to the requirements of being a register Professional Engineer of Queensland (RPEQ) and the associated interaction with Asset Management activities. The opportunity was also taken to outline the AMCouncil strategy for 2020-2023.

Thursday 20th February saw our Brisbane chapter present their first live webinar broadcast from the new EA office location in Brisbane CBD. This was aimed at non-engineers and those new to the concept of asset management.

The session was jointly presented by local chapter chair, Keith Paintin, and committee member, Stephen Walker. 

The Brisbane Chapter held a Technical session on the 21st March in conjunction with the Maintenance and Reliability Special interest Group. There were over 60 attendees present to listen to Mr Ian Sedgwick and Mr Ricardo Santos speaking about Dynamic lifecycle costing and Risk Based Inspection regimes respectively. This was followed by a Q and A Panel session which included the speakers and AMC board member, Dr Monique Beedles.

The recent Brisbane Chapter event held at the Jacobs offices was well supported and the audience were given an insight from Lucien Whitten from Defence Industries Qld into how the policies for aerospace are developed with a particular emphasis on the impact of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This was supported by Andrew Scott who provided an insight into the operations of UAVs, the size and also complexity of the support operations with the most crucial part of UAVs being the people behind them. There was also an interesting discussion on the current and potential future uses of these assets and how the industry might develop over the next 5-10 years.

Wednesday, March 21st, saw the Brisbane chapter host a technical seminar on the subject of Digital Engineering. A well attended evening seminar saw Ian Hardcastle (Digital Engineering Practice Director from Jacobs) present his observations and thoughts on the evolution of Building Information Modelling (BIM) into DE, and how the value of digital information can be created and also eroded.