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Engineering knowledge continuity is crucial for the life cycle management of long-lived and complex assets, such as nuclear plants, locks and storm surge barriers. At the storm surge barriers in the Netherlands, engineering knowledge continuity is not yet fully assured, despite long-standing efforts. This study aims to explore the relationship between system characteristics, the organizational demarcation of maintenance and operation and the challenges in achieving engineering knowledge continuity and provides suggestions for improvement of theory and policy.

Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from various backgrounds in construction, engineering and asset management of the Dutch storm surge barriers, augmented with visits to barriers and barrier teams. A thematic analysis was used to identify and describe the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. We reviewed knowledge management policy documents and asset management consultancy reports to validate the findings. Additionally, we engaged in frequent interactions with professionals at the barriers. We achieved saturation and validation once no new issues were raised during these discussions.

The thematic analysis developed multiple themes describing the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. The key findings are that expert engineers are critically important to deal with redesigns induced by obsolescence. Moreover, due to barrier uniqueness, long redesign cycles and reliability requirements, conventional knowledge continuity tools are insufficient to enable new engineers to reach expert level. Finally, the thematic analysis shows that, in some cases, outsourcing should be reduced to facilitate internal learning.

The study introduces the application of the knowledge-based view of the firm and the concept of requisite knowledge redundancy to the long-term management of complex assets. It calls for more attention to long gaps in the use of unique knowledge and the effect on knowledge continuity.

Effective engineering asset management is essential in delivering public services safely whilst avoiding breakdowns and accidents. The purpose of this paper is to ensure asset safety and sustainability, public sector firms have to adopt new processes and practices. It is the role of supervisors to implement the changes, and as part of the new public management (NPM) public sector reforms, public sector asset managers have more discretionary power to implement further changes related to increased accountability.

The paper explores the impact of management practices on supervisor-employee relationships and employees’ perception of autonomy, employees’ attitudes towards change and their perceptions of organisational culture within Australian public sector engineering asset management organisations, and in the context of NPM reforms and consequent changes in supervisory discretionary power. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical framework and a self-report survey was administered to 149 employees.

The findings from a structural equation model indicate positive and significant relationships between the variables in this study. A finding of significant interest was that public sector employees are on average slightly dissatisfied with their supervisors and feel they have a minimal amount of autonomy in the workplace. This may represent an unintended consequence of NPM reforms.

The implication of the findings is that an effective relationship between supervisors and employees is a necessary ingredient for achieving change, and ensuring asset safety and sustainability. Social exchange theorists argue that the low level of satisfaction with the supervisors evident in this study is one factor compromising asset safety and sustainability.

The roadblocks to good supervisory relationships in the post NPM environment must be dismantled and the findings clearly indicate a need for targeted development of supervisors/management skills to ameliorate the negative effects of the NPM regime and enable effective change management.

The role of engineering asset management (AM) system as a controlling element within organizations is not well defined or understood. The purpose of this paper is to include the role of AM in the organizational strategy making, an issue that has not received sufficient attention. The focus of the paper is on how such role is maintained by the AM system activities, relationships and mechanisms over the asset-related activities of an organization.

As an approach, a reference framework is required that allows research of this area. By combining a number of possible views of an organizational management system a comprehensive view can be established. A review of literature was used to establish a framework identifying the AM system as an integrated part of the organization's management system.

A framework is established that focuses on planning and controlling asset-related activities by involving a set of activities, relationships between these activities and feedback mechanisms. A system functional model is proposed integrating the established framework as part of the control of the enterprise system.

The framework and system functional model are established on a theoretical basis and practical experience requiring applicability to be proven by further research.

Asset managers in capital intensive organizations can utilize the framework and the system functional model in order to study their AM system, its relationships and to consider how it may be improved.

Exploring a holistic and relatively new concept.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an ontology of eco or natural assets to represent eco asset knowledge at two levels: eco asset metal model and eco asset ontology (EA_Onto). The three objectives of this paper are to: define eco assets explicitly to reach a common understanding of the terms; evaluate the ontology; and discuss a potential area of application.

A seven-step methodology was used to develop the proposed ontology: define the scope; develop the eco asset meta model (EA_MM), define taxonomy, code ontology, capture ontology, evaluate ontology and document ontology.

The EA_MM was developed to represent eco asset domain knowledge, which was further extended to develop the EA_Onto, explicitly defining the eco asset knowledge in asset management. As a part of evaluation, it was found that the knowledge representation is consistent, concise, clear, complete and correct.

Theoretically, the proposed ontology is a significant contribution to the body of knowledge in asset management. Practically, the knowledge representation provides a common understanding of eco assets for asset management experts. In addition, it will be used in applications for effective eco asset management.

The current literature lacks explicit declaration of eco assets, how they are related to built environment for effective integration and how asset management functions are to be applied to accomplish effective eco asset management. Presently, eco assets are managed on an ad hoc basis, which need to be explicitly defined through developing an EA_Onto for implementation in applications for effective eco asset management.

Transportation project evaluation and prioritization use traditional performance measures including travel time, safety, user costs, economic efficiency and environmental quality. The project impacts in terms of enhancing the infrastructure resilience or mitigating the consequences of infrastructure damage in the event of disaster occurrence are rarely considered in project evaluation. This paper aims to present a methodology to address this issue so that in prioritizing investments, infrastructure with low security can receive the attention they deserve. Second, the methodology can be used for prioritizing candidate investments from a budget that is dedicated specifically to security enhancement.

In defining security as the absence of risk of damage from threats due to inherent structural or functional resilience, this paper uses security-related considerations in investment prioritization, thus introducing robustness in such evaluation. As this leads to an increase in the number of performance criteria in the evaluation, the paper adopts a multi-criteria analysis approach. The paper’s methodology quantifies the overall security level for an infrastructure in terms of the threats it faces, its resilience to damage and the consequences in the event of the infrastructure damage.

The paper demonstrates that it is feasible to develop a security-related measure that can be used as a performance criterion in the evaluation of general transportation projects or projects dedicated specifically toward security improvement. Through a case study, the paper applies the methodology by measuring the risk (and hence, security) of each for multiple infrastructure assets. On the basis of the multiple types of impacts including risk impacts (i.e. increase in security) because of each candidate investment, the paper shows how to prioritize security investments across the multiple infrastructure assets using multi-criteria analysis.

The overall framework consists of the traditional steps in risk management, and the paper’s specific contribution is in the part of the framework that measures the risk. The paper shows how infrastructure security can be quantified and incorporated in the project evaluation process.

Currently, building information modelling (BIM) is largely seen as a 3D model, not as an information model or information management tool. This wrong perception of BIM and low interest in 3D asset management (AM) is one of the major reasons for the slow adoption by clients in the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. The purpose of this paper is to identify the techniques and strategies of streamlining AM systems for BIM-based integration, and how the information is captured from physical assets towards BIM-based integration for clients to derive value from BIM investments.

A qualitative case study strategy was used to study the strategic implementation process of integrating BIM with AM systems and the business value of BIM in AM by a large asset owner in the UK.

The paper identifies key strategies in the adoption of BIM-based processes by an asset owner, the implementation process, the challenges and the benefits attained. Several barriers were identified as the challenges of adopting BIM-based processes in AM: complexity and cost associated with BIM; irrelevance of 3D geometric data in AM processes; nature of asset ownership structure; managing the asset handover process; managing change within the organisation. Organisations will have to consider the following issues in streaming asset information with BIM: the development for a clear strategy prior to adoption; connecting the strategy to the business goals; and conducting the discovery exercise to identify organisational information needs.

The research addresses a significant gap in the development of techniques and strategies for asset owners to streamline BIM with AM systems and derive business value from such integration. The research context is a case study involving a large owner-operator in the UK that has been able to derive value from BIM systems in their AM processes. The key value of the paper is improving asset owners’ understanding of BIM in AM by demonstrating the implementation strategies, linkage to organisational objectives, challenges, value management process and business value of BIM in AM. Another contribution of the paper is improving the understanding of BIM, which is usually viewed as 3D models and that 3D geometric data do not have much value for AM tasks.

The purpose of this paper is to present a way of working with open-standard building information modeling (BIM), object type libraries, systems engineering and an Information Delivery Manual for the management of information over the life-cycle of infrastructure assets. The concept is presented as a source of inspiration, proof of concept and to underpin the value of different parts of the concept leading to an integrated approach to life-cycle information management.

The paper presents a concept for a way of working. A proof of concept is provided in the form of a case study in which this concept is operational. It shows that this way of working using open-standard BIM can be applied to manage information in the life-cycle. It does not provide, nor suggest to provide, empirical evidence for specific benefits in terms of efficiency.

The paper shows that open-standard BIM can be applied for information management in the life-cycle of (construction) assets. The specific approach that is applied in practice in a Dutch Infrastructure Project is explained including a case project.

The example of Traverse Dieren attests to a implementation of the approach in practice. From this case it can be concluded that the suggested approach is feasible in the initiation and design phase and applicable during realization. Based on the example as described in this paper it cannot be concluded to what extent the known information management problems in the life-cycle are solved. Therefore a detailed evaluation on the information exchange would be required which is beyond the scope of this paper.

This paper shows how different (theoretical) concepts are successfully combined and implemented in practice to attain the defined BIM goals.

This paper shows a practical case implementation of open-standard BIM (using COINS). It provides a way of working that combines BIM, systems engineering, libraries and contractual arrangements for the management of information over the life-cycle of infrastructure assets.

The purpose of this paper is to design a framework for asset data management in power companies. The authors consider asset data management from a strategic perspective, linking operational-level data with corporate strategy and taking into account the organizational context and stakeholder expectations.

The authors conducted a multiple case study based on a literature review and three series of in-depth interviews with experts from three Russian electric power companies.

The main challenge in asset data management for electric power companies is the increasing amount and complexity of asset data, which is frequently incomplete or inaccurately collected, hard to translate to managerial language, focused primarily on the operational level. Such fragmented approach negatively affects strategic decision-making. The proposed framework introduces a holistic approach, provides context and accountability for decision-making and attributes data flows, roles and responsibilities to different management levels.

The limitations of our study lie in the exploratory nature of case study research and limited generalization of the observed cases. However, the authors used multiple sources of evidence to ensure validity and generalization of the results. This article is a first step toward further understanding of the issues of transformation in power companies and other asset intensive businesses.

The novelty of the framework lies in the scope, focus and detailed treatment of asset data management in electric power companies.

The purpose of this work is to investigate industrial asset management (AM) in manufacturing. After depicting gaps for AM in this sector, the role of information as a key dimension is considered to realise a summary of challenges and advices for future development.

The work is grounded on an extensive systematic literature review. Considering the eligible documents, descriptive statistics are provided and a content analysis is performed, both based on a sector-independent normative-based framework of analysis.

AM principles, organisation and information are the dimensions defined to group ten areas of interest for AM in manufacturing. Information is the major concern for an effective AM implementation. Moreover, Internet of Things and big data management and analytics, as well as data modelling and ontology engineering, are the major technologies envisioned to advance the implementation of AM in manufacturing.

The identified challenges and advices for future development may serve to stimulate further research on AM in manufacturing, with special focus on information and data management. The sector-independent normative-based framework may also enable to analyse AM in different contexts of application, thus favouring cross-sectorial comparisons.

Industries with higher operational risk, like Oil&Gas and infrastructure, are advanced in AM, while others, like some in manufacturing, are laggard in this respect. This literature review is the first of a kind addressing AM in manufacturing and depicts the state-of-the-art to pave the way for future research and development.

Value constitutes a key principle of asset management (AM) and decision-making processes should be oriented toward optimizing it. Value models refer to models that can measure the effects of any decision over value, supporting decision-making concerning the assets through their whole lifecycle. In this context, the objective of this work is to develop a methodology for establishing value models to support decision-making in strategic capital investments for multi-category portfolios.

An approach that integrates multi-criteria decision-making, AM principles and participatory processes is proposed.

The analytic hierarchy process and multi-attribute utility methods are used as analytical tools enabling the assignment of absolute merits to the evaluated alternatives. The application of the AM principles allows one to frame the decision problem within the context of AM. Furthermore, participatory processes enhance transparency and trust in the developed value model and empower employees.

Through the application of a case study, it has been demonstrated that the approach not only facilitates the ranking of alternatives and a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses but also establishes a shared concept of objectives (and attributes for their assessment) within the company for the capital investment decision-making.

The AM literature often lacks systematic approaches for identifying value and making value-based decisions. While some approaches have been proposed for guiding strategic capital investments, they typically rely solely on financial and risk criteria. This work aims to bridge this gap by integrating various dimensions of value into the development of a comprehensive value model.