Current State of Practice of Asset Management in Water Sector

Current State of Practice of Asset Management in Water Sector

The RELIABILITY Conference – Asset Management Forum

by Heather Himmelberger, Director - Southwest Environmental Finance Center

Heather Himmelberger is a member of the American Water Works Association Asset Management Subcommittee and, in particular, the survey subcommittee of the larger Asset Management Subcommittee. In spring of 2015, the subcommittee developed and implemented a survey to determine the state of asset management practice across the U.S. and across different size utilities. The survey was based in large part on the Asset Management IQ tool developed by the Southwest EFC as part of the AM Kan Work! Asset Management guidebook. The IQ tool was developed to provide a means of assessing a utility’s baseline asset management practice and then assessing progress over time.

The survey was completed at the end of May 2015 and 778 utilities completed at least part of the survey. This talk will present results of the survey based on the entire survey as well as the result by system characteristics, like system size. The survey provides information regarding the status of the practice in 5 core components: current state of the assets, level of service, criticality, life cycle costing, and long-term funding. The results will show strengths and weaknesses of asset management practice and demonstrate where gaps exist in the practice in both systems overall and systems by type or size.

A portion of the asset management survey covers the area of maintenance. The talk will also include the results of the survey related to maintenance, including strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the maintenance practice.

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