BELCAM project: service life, durability and asset management research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a systemic approach to evaluate physical condition of water pipeline infrastructure with limited condition assessment data that can help asset managers prioritize capital investments in maintenance projects for urban water pipeline systems. Design/methodology/approach Spatial pattern analyses are conducted in this research to find the spatial pattern of the service life of pipelines. Based on the spatial relationship, the critical areas where groups of pipelines with short service life are likely to be found were located using spatial statistical analyses. A visualized platform was also developed and used to validate the implementation of the proposed approach with the case study of urban water pipeline infrastructure in a city in the Midwest region of the USA. Findings The results of the spatial pattern analyses reveal that water pipelines are spatially clustered based on their service life. Further, it was found that on average the pipelines in the center of a city have longer service life while the average expected service life of the pipelines in the marginal areas is shorter. The interpolation method produced raster data with continuous information about the service years of pipelines that are useful for asset maintenance planning. Originality/value With the limited data, the proposed approach enables identification of the critical area of water pipelines with the likelihood of shorter service life. This result can be used as a priority rule for a rehabilitation plan and contributes to shifting from a responsive to a preventive approach in underground asset management.

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Strategic Aspects of Asset Management: An Overview of Current Research

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12155955 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (15) ◽

pp. 5955 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Elizaveta Gavrikova ◽

Irina Volkova ◽

Yegor Burda

Keyword(s):

Asset Management ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Research Field ◽

Future Research ◽

Competitive Advantages ◽

Management Research ◽

Term Survival ◽

Strategic Approach ◽

Future Research Directions ◽

Sustainable Competitive Advantages

Major shifts in the competitive environment encouraged a recent growth in the number of academic articles devoted to strategic aspects of asset management. Organizations start to recognize that a strategic approach to asset management becomes a source of sustainable competitive advantages and long-term survival in the turbulent environment. However, existing studies are largely case-specific in interpreting strategy and draw on various theoretical grounds and approaches. This leads to little theoretical and methodological consistency in understanding current findings and how to design future studies. The key goal of this paper is to systematically review the existing research through the analysis of over 700 articles devoted to asset management with a focus on strategic aspects. Our key contributions are positioning strategic asset management within the vast field of asset management research, describing the nature of strategic asset management research, and confirming that asset management strategies align with different levels of organizational strategy. We visualize the existing research field, and indicate gaps and underdeveloped areas of research. We also shortly outline future research directions based on our findings, thus encouraging a more coherent development of research on strategic asset management.

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