1.00 Strategy and Planning General

Asset management is about good decision making in a structural, systematic and strategic way. It helps you make logical, rational, evidence-based decisions that target your limited resources and prioritize your infrastructure investments. It is the planning tool that helps you organize the future you want for your community. It makes good business sense, and no reasonable person would disagree. This is so obvious that it is boring. This begs the questions: • What could possibly get in the way of evidence-based decision making? • Why do we ignore the things we should not ignore? • Why do we not attend to the things we should attend to? This session will illuminate the condition assessments of a different kind and explore the antidote to asset management apathy.

As maintenance and reliability professionals we often get caught in the detail of appropriate reliability techniques and can sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture and organizational goals.  This presentation will provide an indication of the place of reliability engineering in asset management and business planning.  We will also touch on some of the tools in the toolbox of reliability engineers and maintenance professionals such as asset modelling (deterioration and failure modelling), risk assessment, prioritization and inspection.  The presentation will indicate how these tools relate to business planning and when is appropriate to use during an asset lifecycle.  The presentation will show examples of application through case studies in treatment plants, infrastructure, and building facilities and highlight what we have found to be some of the key issues and challenges and how they can be overcome.  To conclude we will highlight some of the key lessons learned from application of these tools and approaches.

ESG targets and reporting are becoming increasingly important. Investors and governments around the world are pushing for transparency and ever more rigorous reporting on ESG indicators. It is likely that financial regulators in North America will make ESG reporting mandatory within the next 2 years.  Many components of ESG frameworks affect asset management, and conversely good asset management can help improve an organization’s ESG scores. Think of climate change, pollution, health & safety, risk management, water use and GHG emissions to name a few.  It is therefore crucial for asset managers to understand the current frenzy around ESG reporting. Yet the ESG ecosystem can be quite baffling: there is no single definition of what ESG stands for, or what is “in” or “out”, or what reporting standard to follow.This presentation will shed some light on who does what in the ESG ecosystem, what standards and reporting options are available, and how all this will increasingly affect the way organizations make strategic decisions. Asset management has a big role to play in this context. Many asset managers have been confronted with complex, multi-stakeholder decision-making frameworks for years and are quite adept at aligning various departments to a common set of objectives. The definition of “value” in asset management often already contains many metrics that are now part of ESG reporting. We will explore how robust value frameworks can help organizations reach better decisions and improve their ESG scores – with the guidance of their asset management team!

When we talk to the leadership about improvement projects the first response we often hear is “show me the money”. The business case is the tool used to communicate the approach, benefits, value created and justify project expenditure. The value is measured by Return on Investment (ROI). ROI is calculated by a cash flow model highlighting benefits and cash flows (positive and negative), and quantified as NPV, IRR, Breakeven, etc. However, based on past project returns, management often views these ROI projections as “risky business”. This is not an underserved reputation as, over the years, many maintenance, and asset management projects have failed to deliver the returns that were promised. This session will address how to build the business case, some of the common risks that impact ROI, and tools and techniques to identify and mitigate potential risks will be reviewed. Special emphasis will be given to enlisting senior management assistance in management ROI risk.

This presentation will describe Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s (NSPI’s) Asset Management journey – comparing the progression for our Power Production division, with that current in play in support of our Transmission, Distribution and Delivery (T&D) division. NSPI has deployed a fully-integrated, technology-enabled Asset Management approach for its Power Production fleet of assets. The journey to undertake that development was staged, with key components of the asset management approach integrated in a step-wise fashion, each building up on the other. Carefully designed visuals were used to communicate and gain asset owner (plant management and field-level) support for the initiative, and resources from the organization migrated to the centralized asset management team over time, providing centralized, fleet-level support vs. plant-level support. Over approximately 8 years, the “Asset Management Office” team grew from 3 to 10, including dedicated operational technology resources, technical subject matter experts focused on generation assets and performance, and field level support resources. Major programs were deployed such as condition-based monitoring, predictive analytics and digital Operator rounds. There was room for trial-and-error, and continuous improvement with significant field engagement. A very bottom-up approach. In 2017, the Asset Management team’s mandate expanded to include NSPI’s T&D assets. The mandate included an organizational change, which gave the Enterprise Asset Management (TEAM) division (which includes Asset Management, but also Capital Management and Planning) elevated status via Sr. Director leadership. Some resources from the T&D division of the organization changed their reporting point to the AM team “en masse”. An EAM Integration Management position was created to have consistent leadership over the integration of the asset management approach across T&D, including integration into existing Asset Performance Management systems and framework, ensuring alignment with, and building on successful work completed for Power Production. The expectation for successful transition at a higher level, with minimal bumps along the way, was very different. A very top-down approach. Each approach has its highs (“…the best of times..”, and lows (“…the worst of times…”). But while different, there are common learnings and lessons that can be applied. Each approach can be effective – and in fact has been effective for NS Power. Perhaps you are starting small…. Or perhaps you are starting big… or somewhere in between. In any case, our Tale of Two Deployments will share with you NSPI’s experiences, and share of the benefits and challenges of each.Originally presented at MainTrain 2021 

In operating large or multisite portfolios, there are significant resource constraints which result in limited or a misallocated application of financial and time investment; this in turn, provides either unanticipated or high risk results. I will guide session attendees through the process of developing a decision making model for initiative prioritization - whether it is capital works projects, maintenance activities, continuous improvement initiatives, or potentially the day to day routines already established. We will begin with the journey of defining operational context in the view of the customer, the levels of service and focus areas for maintenance teams and capital teams. It becomes challenging with fiscal constraints, and the charge to implement continuous improvement often doesn’t result in value; how do we prevent ourselves from reacting to the latest trend or quick solution? How do we identify everything that needs to happen vs everything we want to happen? Understanding where you are is key in being able to define how you get to where you want to be. However, prioritizing the purpose of what you do is paramount to focus efforts on activities which add value to not only the organization but the customer, and to form a strong culture of positive support for our people. The decision making model you use and the role as a facilitator amongst the varying stakeholders and opinions is key to achieving success.

There is little doubt that managing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and making plans for re-entry to the workplace, has been challenging for building professionals. The epidemic triggered a rapid shift on establishing new work protocols, the handling of facility maintenance routines, dealing with greater sanitization requirements, emergency measures, and new work behaviours. As vaccinations continue to be administered, businesses have had to develop strategies for safe and enhanced re-entry workplace procedures. During the session, a scan of the past year’s trauma and experiences will be shared from a building professional’s perspective. These experiences have strengthened and accelerated new opportunities as we rebuild an optimal workplace. The session will look at different workplace options in the new paradigm.

The purpose of this document is to provide information on the value asset management can provide an organization.

To deliver value from our assets means organizations must manage cost, performance, and risk simultaneously. In practice, this is no easy task. Are there trade-offs? Sure, but seeking to balance breeds mediocrity. Can we optimize? Yes, the aim is to achieve higher service at a lower cost and acceptable risk. The magic CPR triangle provides a simple representation of a complex dynamic system that is constantly resolving itself to produce the results the organization deserves based on how well its assets are managed, or not. Join Paul Daoust as we challenge our perceptions of the fascinating relationship between cost, performance, and risk. Together we will apply the magic CPR triangle as a basis for crucial first principles thinking leading to more, better decisions, vastly improved business plans, and higher-value business outcomes from the same assets with fewer resources.

Let us look at an ordinary omnipresent part of Asset Management: bolting and fastening the machinery or structure. This single vital activity turns out to be remarkably neglected with undesirable consequences for reliability. Motion Amplification®, a new technology has the capacity to show machinery and structural movements, and so naturally brings out looseness or unnatural behaviors. Fastening errors seem to be one of the most prevalent occurrences and it is therefore important to look at what we can learn and how the technology can drive improvements and uses of best practices. A variety of problems are shown, such as forgotten difficult to access bolts, rusted/corroded fasteners, improper tension, improper washers, bolt grade or size and custom modifications such as a bunch of small shims. Some of the issues can be attributed to design errors, some to lack of asset information provided, some to installation errors, lack of training and proper tools or a culture of installation and maintenance excellence. Sometimes and improvement push comes with the integration of more advanced tools, for example tools exist where the torque can be properly managed. This requires that many other items come into place, such as the missing information, correct parts, training and cultural to get the job done properly.