ENG8104 Asset management in an engineering environment
Assignment 1 – Semester 1 2016
Date due: 29 April 2016
Weighting: 30% (300 marks)
Special Instructions
1. Answer all questions, and ensure that your answers have the coverage, and are in the format, requested.
2. Present your own ideas.
3. Your answers should be properly referenced and reflect that you have undertaken research outside the study material.
4. It is expected that your answers will be produced using electronic word processing. The .pdf format is preferred for written answers. Answers to numerical questions should be produced with an electronic spreadsheet, in which all steps in any calculation should be clearly explained.
5. Assignments will be submitted electronically via the Study Desk.
6. Please note that if plagiarism or cheating is detected in this assignment it will result in no marks for the assignment. Students should ensure they clearly understand the meaning of plagiarism and cheating. In particular, students should understand that while they may collaborate with other students on the conceptual ideas in their assignments, the final written report submitted by each student must be unique, and must not contain the written material of (a) any other student in the course, or (b) by any other person without due acknowledgement. Assignments are expected to be submitted to plagiarism detection software at the time of submission.
7. Applications for extensions of assignment submission must be made in writing to the Course Examiner together with accompanying documentation as specified in the Assessment of Compassionate and Compelling Circumstances Procedure. The application and all supporting documentation must be submitted electronically.
An Assignment submitted after the deadline without an approved extension of time will be penalised. The penalty for late submission without a pre-approved extension will be specified in the assignment instructions. At the very least, the penalty for late submission is a reduction by 5% of the maximum Mark applicable for the Assignment, for each University Business Day or part Business Day that the Assignment is late. An Assignment submitted more than ten University Business Days after the deadline will have a Mark of zero recorded for that Assignment.
Course Examiners may refuse to accept Assignments for Assessment purposes after Marked
Assignments and/or feedback have been released. If Compassionate and Compelling Circumstances appear to exist, Course Examiners must consider these before refusing to accept an Assignment.
See: http://policy.usq.edu.au/documents/14749PL#4.2_Assignments
Question 1 (300 marks)
Asset Management Strategic Planning
Background
You are an asset manager for a medium sized company, the primary purpose of which is to provide services or products to industrial and/or domestic consumers. Some examples of such an organisation include, but are not limited to:
• Water supply authority
• Sewerage authority
• Road network owner
• Electricity supply company
• Gas supply company
• Telecommunications provider
• Systems network provider • Power station owner
• Product manufacturer.
Your organisation owns a network of assets that enable it to deliver its services. The assets in the network are of various types, sizes, ages and condition. Because of financial constraints over the past several years, the assets in the network have not been replaced except when absolutely necessary. Maintenance equipment is also not in a generally good condition. Inspection is mainly by visual means, supplemented where required by more detailed investigation.
While a basic asset management system program is in place, few minor assets are recorded on it. Most assets are still located by traditional methods such as links of key reference points (for example, bends, pits, poles, equipment) to property boundaries and centreline distances, building locations, or similar types of reference points. Other asset information is minimal, and is mainly limited to information that is absolutely necessary for maintenance purposes.
There is concern that your organisation’s assets are not always located as per your organisation’s records. The situation has been exacerbated by poor record keeping in the past, and by not recording changes when there have been changes to key asset data, including location.
This poor state of records makes it difficult for other service providers to have sufficient confidence in the information you supply about your assets for their design, construction and maintenance.
Over the past several years, there have been a steadily increasing number of complaints by users of your products as a result of numerous breakdowns in service and failures. Were it not for the fact that there are a number of barriers of entry to the business in which your organisation is engaged (for example, cost, government licences, technology), and the fact that the charges your organisation has levied for usage of its services are cheaper than similar services elsewhere, your organisation might by now be in considerable difficulty.
With changes in technology and lessening government controls, there are a number of potential competitors entering the market. The rapid technological changes in the assets under your organisation’s control, in asset management processes and methods, and in the types of products delivered by your organisation, are increasingly placing competitors in a position to challenge your organisation to perform.
In search for an answer to what are clearly a number of looming concerns, your organisation has recently appointed you to develop an asset management strategy that meets your board’s targets of best industry practice for your particular type of asset network within five years, and a national leadership position within ten years.
Funds – but not unlimited funds - have been made available for this purpose. Your organisation is expecting that the vastly improved standard of service brought by your management skills will bring contented customers who will pay the additional price required for a modern and reliable service.
New technologies are available that are expected to assist you to minimise the cost of upgrading your asset, select the best type of maintenance and rehabilitation, and enable your organisation to take a leading position in the asset management field. Other new technologies are likely to enable you to increase the choices available to the consumer and greatly improve the quality of service provided.
Your Task
Write a submission to your chief executive officer of your organisation describing a strategy to review and improve your organisation’s assets, their management, and the standard of service which they provide, to achieve the board’s goals.
You will need to select the organisation, type of assets and asset network you are managing.
While a real organisation is preferred, you may write your answer for a hypothetical organisation. You should indicate whether the organisation about which you are writing is real or hypothetical.
Your submission should be between 3000 and 4000 words in length and will have, in addition to the body of the report, an abstract, table of contents, background, introduction, conclusion and list of references. Background information should be as brief as possible and include a brief description of your organisation, its asset network, services provided by that asset network, and current state of the network.
At a minimum, your report should address the following specific points (240 marks):
• Background information about the asset network and the assets in it (this should be sufficient to set the scene for the reader) (20 marks)
• The asset life cycle (20 marks)
• Stakeholder expectations (20 marks)
• The outcomes you want to achieve at the end of the five and ten year periods (15 marks)
• Performance and serviceability requirements and indicators (15 marks)
• Development of a reliable asset inventory (15 marks)
• Deterioration and condition monitoring (15 marks)
• How to achieve optimum performance from the asset network (15 marks)
• Current and future technologies (15 marks)
• Development of a corporate asset management plan (15 marks)
• Use of appropriate asset management systems (15 marks)
• Likely benefits and costs (20 marks) • Conclusion (20 marks) • Recommendations (20 marks).
A further 60 marks are allocated for communication aspects of your report, as follows:
• Abstract and table of contents (10 marks)
• Structure (10 marks)
• Language and style (10 marks)
• Completion in 3000 to 4000 words (10 marks)
• Setting out and referencing (20 marks)
Comments
It is recommended that you take some time considering a suitable asset type and network on which to write your report. You should then research the selected asset type and its likely network arrangements; and also research processes and methods for managing both the selected asset type and the network. Critically review the information you have found in order to select the most suitable methodology for managing the assets over the next ten years and beyond. Reflect on the possible options and consider a suitable approach for the assets under your control, with the aim of achieving national and ultimately world best practice.
You should review references outside the course material, using both on-line and print resources. Online resources include both the Internet and on-line library reference material. For example, the University of Southern Queensland subscribes to a number of on-line databases, which contain abstracts (and often full text) of many current journals.