GHD completed a corporate strategy to improve the City's Asset
Management practices and develop an Asset Management Plan for all
corporate service areas including transportation, water and
wastewater, waste management, and parks and recreation.
Project Background
The City of Barrie has experienced unprecedented
levels of growth in the past few years. Recognizing the future
liabilities of both new and existing infrastructure, the City is
embarking on a path to sustainable management of its assets. The
City wished to leverage the data and knowledge gained through the
first steps of compliance with Public Sector Accounting Board
(PSAB) 3150 for Tangible Capital Assets.
The City created a Corporate Asset Management
(AM) Department with a mandate of guiding the creation of a
corporate approach to managing all City-owned assets.
GHD’s Role
This Department worked closely with GHD to
develop a comprehensive strategy for the management of all
corporate assets, to develop a policy framework and improvement
plans in support of that strategy, and to implement the strategy in
the preparation of the City’s first AM plans, by asset type, and an
overarching corporate asset status report.
Methodology
Working closely with the City of Barrie Project
Team, and making presentations to the Internal Asset Working Group
and the Executive Management Team throughout the project, GHD’s
project team used a hands-on approach to develop the following
integrated deliverables:
Task 1 – Background
Information
To understand the City’s current asset
management practice and to supply information for the development
of the first asset management plans for the City, information was
collected from the City’s web site, provided by the City’s project
team in the form of documents and databases, and through
discussions with staff and the committees at workshops and
interviews.
Task 2 – Corporate AM
Strategy
The asset management strategy provides a
structured set of actions to be undertaken by the City to improve
its asset management capability and achieve specific strategic
objectives. The gap analysis strategy report includes a future
vision for asset management at the City, observations on the
current status of City asset management practice (i.e. processes,
asset data, and information systems), analysis of the gap between
the current status and future vision, and an action plan to close
the gap (shown below).
Task 3 – Change Management &
Communication Plans
A change management and communication plan for
City staff, Council and the community helps to build a common
understanding of asset management principles and ensure consistent
implementation of the corporate Asset Management Strategy across
the organization. Work included gathering available information on
existing City organization and culture and document current change
management and asset management awareness issues, outlining change
management considerations related to asset management, conducting
an Organizational Culture Survey as part of the AM Strategy Current
Practice Workshops, identifying the observations and findings: the
survey results, cultural strengths, areas of concern, and the
opportunities for improvement, and recommending a change management
and communication/ education plan.
Task 4 – Corporate AM Policy, Framework
& Processes
Enhancing an asset management program involves
balancing continuous improvement of business processes, data and
systems, and the organization and the people within it. Processes
form the basis for all asset management activities within the City.
Therefore, without clearly defined and documented procedures, the
ability for the City to execute practices consistently is greatly
reduced. This task describes the recommended City asset management
policy and framework or vision (shown below), and the lifecycle
processes related to asset management. Over time, each of these
asset management lifecycle processes will be incorporated into
current City practices and tailored to suit different asset
types.
Task 5 – AM Plans
AM Plans provide a rational framework enabling systematic and
repeatable processes to manage costs, risks and levels of service
for the City’s assets. AM Plans enable identification of
future costs and assist in predicting future problems that may
hinder service delivery, and create opportunities for the City’s
asset managers and operators to remove physical, financial and
political barriers before they negatively impact customer levels of
service. The AM Plans outline the asset activities corporately and
for each service within the City (Environmental, Transportation,
Recreation & Culture, Facilities, and Fleet) and provide a
guide to understanding key items such as the City’s organizational
strategic goals, the City wide asset portfolio, levels of service
and performance standards, demand forecasting, management
techniques to assist in making long term funding decisions and
prolonging asset life, the lifecycle activities used to operate,
maintain, renew, develop and dispose of assets, cash flow
forecasting, and key asset management practice improvement
actions.
Task 6 – Organizational
Review
The purpose of this organizational review
of the City’s business units in the context of the role they play
in managing the City's assets is to identify gaps between current
practice and best practice, and to recommend improvements to fill
the gaps. The organizational review involved gathering available
information on the City’s existing organization, outlining
organizational best practices related to asset management,
identifying opportunities for improvement of the existing City
organizational structure, and recommending organizational
improvements. Assessment of the City’s organizational
structure addressed:
- What contingencies have changed?
- What dysfunctions exist in the current
organization?
Task 7 – Performance Measurement
Performance management is the systematic and
cyclical process of identifying objectives, collating information
regarding the achievement of those objectives, reporting the
information in a meaningful way, and using the information to
improve delivery of services to customers. Good performance
management can help the City improve service delivery, demonstrate
value for money, and provide accountability to the City’s customers
and community. A performance measurement framework (shown below)
provides an overview of the components of a performance measurement
system. It shows how customer and asset service levels clearly link
to corporate goals and requirements, and how key performance
indicators support the service levels. The framework also describes
the data required to measure the performance, the reporting
requirements, and how the information will be used to continuously
improve delivery of services.
Task 8 – Information Technology System
Architectural Plan
The information technology architectural plan
included an outline of information technology system considerations
related to the City’s asset management practice, the best practice
functionality and information requirements for business processes
related to asset management, review of systems currently employed
by the City (system, status in software lifecycle, current points
of integration, and effectiveness of current software),
opportunities for improvement, and recommended improvement
plan.
Task 9 – Corporate Asset Status Report
The Asset Status Report is a key document to enable
knowledgeable asset investment decisions by City Council. It
is built upon planning and reporting work provided in other City
documents, as shown in the figure below.
Results
The results of the project were presented
to the Executive Management Team in a detailed report in January
2010 and then to City Council in the form of the Corporate Asset
Status Report.
GHD Contact
For more information, please contact:
Simon Page
Email: simon.page@ghd.com
Tel: 1 905 752 4317