CHAPTER 5

Asset Management Policy

The objective for asset information handover is for an airport organization to receive from the design and construction team(s) the data and information necessary to effectively operate a newly constructed asset and appropriately maintain that asset. The processes an airport establishes to achieve a successful asset information handover could vary from one project type to another based on whether it is new construction or a renovation project, who is responsible for asset maintenance (e.g., tenant) versus who is the actual asset owner (e.g., the airport), or project size (capital cost). Regardless of the parameters established, for those constructed assets that an airport owns and manages, certain information is needed to appropriately manage and maintain the asset, and the process of asset information handover during project closeout must be clearly defined and enforced for airports to get the information needed. This is true whether the airport will maintain the constructed asset, or a third-party vendor or tenant will maintain the asset. The concept is that the constructed asset will always be “owned” by the airport, and knowing its maintenance requirements and subsequent history could prove useful.

What Is Asset Management?

Asset management can mean many things depending on the mission, goals, and objectives of an organization. Numerous standards have been developed addressing asset management program requirements, including the ISO 55000 series of documents. If, as an airport organization, you have experienced issues with ensuring each building system or other constructed assets remain in operation, you might want to review the available standards and other reference resources and consider implementing more strategic asset management processes and procedures to help keep your airport’s assets fully operational. At several airport organizations, staff operate in silos or do not effectively cross-communicate or share information. Each group or department resorts to whatever opportunities afford them success when attempting to accomplish a given task. Sometimes, one group’s success can be at the expense of another peer group or department. Sometimes, a group’s accomplishment will create redundancies in efforts that would otherwise save your airport money if such groups were to work together and not replicate efforts. Business processes that every group helps develop might minimize such inefficiencies.

Airports are composed of similar assets: runway(s), taxiway(s), a few buildings of various types and functions, roadways, landscaping, perimeter fencing, security systems, and so forth. However, there is not a single solution to how an airport should collect data regarding this infrastructure, the built environment, and the constructed assets, nor is there consensus about which assets are most important. Each airport organization is unique in this regard. Airports maintain the built environment either with their own staff or by hiring others. Some airports have third-party firms support their internal staff just to ensure each asset type is addressed properly (e.g., having painters, plumbers, or electricians on call in cases of work overloads or emergencies).

To effectively maintain and manage the built environment, airports need to know what they own, what condition it is in, and where it is located. Ensuring the collection of data that will provide airport stakeholders with the desired level of detail for the constructed assets they maintain and manage is the goal of having requirements for asset information handover and project closeout processes and procedures.

Asset Management Policy

Policies mean different things to each airport. However, regarding an airport’s asset information, a policy represents a set of goals that define how the airport manages its constructed assets and the information that supports achieving those goals.

Asset management policies range from a single, high-level document stating that an organization supports asset management as a strategic goal to a myriad of SOP documents that support an asset management policy and process. Each of these process and procedure documents should provide guidelines for how the airport’s constructed assets are to be managed, how multiple internal groups should interact with one another to reduce redundancy in the data being collected, and how asset data might be used across departments and the organization. Asset information handover represents only a part, albeit a critical part, of an asset management program. Without the asset information handed over upon project closeout, airport stakeholders cannot plan for future maintenance, repairs, or eventual replacements of the assets.

These policy documents collectively should define the high-level principles of an organization and the requirements that help the organization adhere to and fulfill the policy. Defining the organization’s asset-management-related requirements represents the first major step toward a more successful asset management program. Understanding asset management and an airport’s requirements to not only maintain but manage their assets will allow staff to think about asset information handover and what asset information they need to help them take care of assets and fulfill their roles and responsibilities.

An asset management policy will outline requirements that are in line with the airport’s mission and vision statements. It should describe the higher-level principles for an asset management program so that the stakeholder groups responsible for each constructed asset know that top management is on board with the day-to-day activities that support asset management and the strategies involved with ensuring asset operation.

Stakeholder Engagement

Documentation in support of any asset management policy should represent the needs of the airport’s internal and external stakeholders. Following the development of a policy, processes and procedures should be identified and documented to ensure that the policy is properly executed. Effective policy execution begins with senior leadership commitment. Asset information handover is one process that will help make the program effective.

Airports should engage their stakeholders in the development of policy and process/procedure standards to better understand the challenges each stakeholder group faces and help ensure that asset information handover requirements support their information requirements. Several of the airports that participated in case studies for this research face the challenge of multiple sources of asset information. These sources include “institutional knowledge” (the information that resides within a staff member’s head); worksheets in a spreadsheet application; paper documents kept in desk drawers; and a multitude of differing software systems, each of which supports a certain “ask” from airport staff. Most stakeholders did not know which resource represented the “single source of truth” regarding asset data.

Part of the development of an asset information handover process and procedure is to ensure successful integration of project closeout information regardless of its format—hard copy documents or electronic files—into whatever systems an airport utilizes to help manage and maintain the built environment. Possible software tools include geospatial applications, CAD files, BIM applications, spreadsheet and word-processing applications (e.g., Excel or Word), and read-only PDF-type documents.

Example Policy Language

The following asset management policy text is offered as a sample. Portions of the text in brackets should be edited to appropriately reflect your airport’s situation.