IPWEA CEO David Jenkins
Whether you’re a local government or an infrastructure-intensive business, gaining meaningful insights into your assets no doubt pose a significant challenge.
In this era of ‘big data’, raw asset information is readily available in huge quantities – but data for data’s sake can be overwhelming. We need smart approaches to collecting, synthesising and analysing this information so stakeholders can walk away with actionable intelligence.
To meet this challenge, IPWEA released a software tool called NAMS+ in 2007 that enables users to both store and ‘crunch’ their data. Since then, the tool has assisted more than 600 stakeholders around the world.
NAMS+ is asset agnostic; in other words, it doesn’t provide a detailed analysis of any one particular asset class. Rather, it provides intelligence about the lifecycle of whatever asset it’s analysing – areas such as operations and maintenance, capital renewal, asset acquisition and asset disposal. NAMS+ is aligned with the International Infrastructure Asset Manual (IIMM), which we refer to as the ‘black book’ for the technical side of asset management.
This April, we unveiled a major NAMS+ upgrade and it’s now used by stakeholders globally. While the logic and concepts underpinning the program haven’t changed, the new version of NAMS+ is nevertheless a significant step forward. In the past, users needed to manually submit their data to IPWEA for loading and analysis in NAMS+ – now the program is fully cloud-based and operates in real time. The user interface has also received a significant upgrade.
The response to the new tool has been very positive. According to Ashleigh Vickery, Strategic Asset Services Administrator at the City of Canada Bay in Sydney: “The NAMS+ tool takes away the complexities of creating your own graphs and uses your data to build graphs behind the scenes, making it simpler to write and analyse an Asset Management Plan. You can easily import data straight from your LTFP and Capital Works Program to tell the story. This gives you time to utilise the information in the graphs to make smarter asset management decisions for your organisation.”
AssetFuture, a Sydney-based technology company, also recognises the benefits of technology using machine learning and IoT. Its software takes into account all aspects of portfolio management, so the best decisions are made.
Says AssetFuture CEO Domenic Fonte: “Using technology has always been about making experiences better for people. It starts with good data and continues with supporting analysis to enable financially sound decision-making.”
Technology alone doesn’t necessarily make it easier to organise and analyse data. Human intelligence is required, too. But if stakeholders can gain an understanding of the latest tech resources at their disposal, the potential for the transformation of their asset management procedures is significant.
To help our users get the most out of NAMS+, IPWEA provides NAMS+ training in the form of a Webinar Short Course, as well as onboarding and mentoring services. Click here to find out more.
