Michael Salvato from New York Metro visited Sydney and Melbourne during the first week in May 2016. Michael presented at special Chapter meetings for the Sydney and Melbourne Chapter in ‘sell-out’ events. Michael was joined by a panel of local speakers, Paul O’Halloran from Metro Trains, Claire Morizt from Jacobs, Chris Stoltz from EA, and Nick Phillips from AMCouncil. The networking drinks after the speakers were kindly sponsored by Jacobs.
The NSW Government EAM processes are being used as reference models to accelerate the transformation at New York Metro. The AMCouncil was instrumental in assisting in development of these EAM processes.
Michael Salvato provided a brief history of the New York Metro and an overview of the challenges and trends in infrastructure asset management. Global trends tend to be around higher stakeholder expectations, rapidly changing technologies, climate change and new international standards. This translates to agency challenges of growing service demands, accelerating rate of innovation and chronic underfunding.
The three responses used by NY Metro in response to infrastructure challenges are listed in three groups:-
- Smart (embedded intelligence in infrastructure, clever use of generated information from the cities infrastructure, use of common standards),
- Sustainable (how to reduce our net environmental footprint),
- Asset Management
Some key points raised by the panel included:
- Infrastructure underpins social and economic systems and there are a certain amount of technical requirements that need to be met. Michael explained that in his organisation the amount of work that technical officers put into the functioning of the organization is ‘heroic’, in such things as making sure the trains run on time, that the street lights are working etc and the public needs to have a healthy respect for this work. It is expected that politicians too support the technical officers rather than hamper their work. Bringing visibility of good asset management practices to the table enables an organisation to be in the position to be able to use information on its assets in the decision making processes and realise the outcomes in productivity and efficiency the organisation seeks.
- The community have a high expectation of performance of the rail system but no understanding of the problems faced by the organisation in meeting the expectations.
- Improve communication in asset management. Asset management underpins the fundamentals of societies we live in. Not spending money on infrastructure now is just a deferment. Its easy to cut maintenance budgets and wear down the assets and the people that manage the assets down with the consequence of devastating failure which is not a saving at all. Asset Management systems brings the evidence needed to decide the optimum level for investment in your assets.
- It is important that we look to the next generation and not just the next election. A whole of life asset management planning for our assets is required rather than looking at the next big capital project.
A copy of Michael’s presentation can be downloaded from the members zone of the AMCouncil website
A copy of Claire’s presentation can be downloaded from the members zone of the AMCouncil website