OREANDA-NEWS. June 29, 2016. Recently, ReNew Magazine, a Canadian publication focused on infrastructure, highlighted the changing landscape of municipal asset management practices in Canada, with organizations moving away from a focus on maintenance and toward broad scale investment planning.

Galvanized by a federal funding announcement in December 2015, municipalities have begun to invest more heavily in their asset management programs and have seen direct results such as improved service performance, and reduced capital and operating costs.

CH2M’s Asset Management team has been working with municipalities across Canada supporting the implementation of successful asset management programs. Part of the team’s set of service offerings is training in asset management as outlined in ISO 55000, PAS 55 and the Institute of Asset Management’s (IAM) learning framework.

In the article, Eve Krakow writes, “Training employees in asset management can be a strategic move for organizations seeking to prioritize their infrastructure spending.”

CH2M’s Gareth Lifton, global practice lead for Strategic Asset Management said, “It’s about understanding how you deliver value to your customers by optimizing the decisions made regarding your asset base. This throws up a number of challenges and unknowns for infrastructure-owning organizations.”

Two of CH2M’s Asset Management clients, the City of Winnipeg and the Town of Oakville, discussed their positive experience with CH2M’s Asset Management training program. The clients highlighted CH2M’s training program as key to developing a more holistic understanding of how proper planning can positively impact a diversity of teams that span municipalities’ purview.

“It’s a huge benefit when you get people in the organization, horizontally and vertically, all talking the same language,” said CH2M client Ron Amann, manager of Winnipeg’s asset management program.

In Oakville, the training showed employees the broader implications of department-focused asset management decisions.

Participants learned about assessing risk, life-cycle costing and planning, looking at their assets in terms of performance and level of service, factors to consider for optimal decision-making, how to collect and retain data, financial and business impacts and much more.

For Winnipeg, CH2M’s training has brought about a focus on consistency, thorough investment planning and project delivery across the municipality. With the help of CH2M’s training, the municipality has now introduced its own asset management courses and materials, ensuring that best practices are maintained throughout the lifecycle of an asset.

CH2M’s successful delivery of these training programs has not only yielded positive results for clients, but has also provided CH2M with increased business, as the team has been procured to further implement asset management best practices into these organizations.