What are asset management decisions?

• Decision types in the asset life cycle
• Competing business drivers (e.g. cost, risk, performance, sustainability)
• Trade-offs and optimization: theory and reality

Essential elements of a Decision-Making Framework

• Decision processes and their proportionality
• Identifying what data & knowledge is really needed
• Decision Support Tools
• Stakeholder engagement and consensus-building
• Governance requirements

Best practices research and case studies

• Risk- and Life Cycle Cost-based decisions
• Value frameworks and the quantification of different stakeholder impacts
• The 6-step SALVO Process
• Trade-offs and Optimization

Different methods for different types of decision

• Asset investment decisions (new assets and/or renewal of aging assets)
• Maintenance & inspection decisions
• Materials, inventory and spares decisions
• Portfolio & programme optimisation
• Shutdowns, outages and work bundling decisions

The people dimension

• Understanding stakeholder motivations and priorities
• Bias, preconceptions, fears and protectionism
• Consultation, cross-disciplinary teamwork and consensus-building
• Making a convincing business case to sceptical audience.

Students will understand the factors, processes, and governance needed to ensure that asset management decisions are made in a robust and consistent way, appropriate to the organization and based on value-for-money.  They will recognize the opportunities, constraints, information requirements, and consensus-building skills needed to establish a decision-making framework in their own organization.  And they will recognize, and be able to explain, the scale of business benefits that are available from improving asset management decision-making. 

This course includes leading-edge research into best practices in asset management decision-making.  It will teach participants how to correctly handle risk and uncertainty, how to quantify the value of ‘intangibles’ such as reputation and sustainability, how to handle trade-offs, and find the optimal timing for asset interventions (e.g. inspections, maintenance, shutdowns, or capital investments).  It will also show how different methods and tools for decision support are suited to different types of decisions, with different levels of complexity and criticality.

This course is applicable to:

• Middle and Senior managers
• Department heads and team leaders
• Projects, Maintenance and Procurement planners/managers
• Engineering, operations, process and production staff
• Innovators, investment planners & best practice facilitators

Although no pre-qualification is required, a degree-level or HND qualification is recommended.