In times of restructuring governmental policies and resources, the need for strategic asset management is growing. Maturity models offer organisations a structure to assist them in improving their asset management performance. We present the results of a repeated maturity measurement based on the Infrastructure Management Maturity Matrix (IM³) in Rijkswaterstaat, a Dutch public infrastructure organisation. The IM³ distinguishes five maturity levels from ad hoc to optimised, and seven asset management dimensions: information management, internal coordination, external coordination, market approach, risk management, processes & roles, and culture & leadership. The results show significant progress on all dimensions, and continued learning and widespread awareness of asset management in the organisation. In the discussion we reflect on the findings and possible future developments for the organisation. We also discuss the potential impact of infrastructure maturity models for the professionalization of other asset intensive organisations.
Ten years of joint research on the nature and causes of discoloured water has resulted in guidelines for the implementation of self-cleaning distribution networks. These were first introduced in the Netherlands in 1999. The self-cleaning concept has been monitored right from its beginnings. Based on this evaluation, significant observations were found on the contribution of changes in flow velocity to the self-cleaning characteristics of pipes. These observations will be further investigated and will form the basis for the concept of dynamic sediment transportation modelling.
civil engineering and geosciences, delft university of technology, delft, the netherlands ABSTRACT Civil infrastructure assets, such as roads, locks, bridges, treatment plants and storm surge barriers, are often characterised by long service lives and corresponding technical life cycles. When life cycles are long, the time value of money plays a role in asset management decision-making on capital investments and operation and maintenance expenditures. In this paper, a new life cycle costing (LCC) approach for discounting in two classes of maintenance optimisation models is developed. These models are the age replacement model and the interval replacement model. Three well-known LCC techniques, which are the present worth, the capital recovery and the capitalised equivalent worth, are combined and used to develop a stepwise methodology. This methodology is validated with the few case-specific mathematical equations that exist in the literature. The advantage of using this alternative LCC approach is its applicability and flexibility for reliability and maintenance engineers. The resulting LCC method builds on well-known LCC formula and enhances the understanding of the inclusion of discounting principles in reliability models. Understanding these principles makes the method flexible. Practitioners can extend or adapt the method to changing circumstances, such as additional cash flows and altering reliability modelling.
Managerial flexibility in infrastructure investment and replacement decisions adds value. Real options analysis (ROA) captures this value under uncertain market prices. The concept of ROA is that future unfavourable payoffs can be deferred as soon as more information about market prices becomes available. The popularity of ROA is seen in a growing number of case studies on real assets. Despite its increasing popularity, ROA has not gained a foothold in public infrastructure decision making. One of the difficulties in the application of ROA is the required estimation of market variables. To avoid this, a simplified but not correct version of ROA is easily applied, referred to as a Decision Tree Approach (DTA) to ROA. Another difficulty is that infrastructure assets are subject to other types of uncertainties, defined here as asset uncertainties. This study investigates the value of managerial flexibility in a public infrastructure replacement decision. The uncertainty drivers are the strength of a bridge, political decisions regarding traffic flow and the price development of construction costs. Three valuation approaches are compared: DTA, ROA and the DT approach to ROA. Although it is complex, ROA certainly adds value in public infrastructure decision making when market price uncertainty is prevalent. However, in the absence of reasonable estimates of market variables, the DT approach to ROA is the best alternative. In the absence of market price uncertainties, ROA should be avoided DTA is to be preferred.
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