Análisis microestructural (SEM y TEM)

There is lack of consensus amongst researchers and commentators as to the origins of asset management. However, there is unanimity amongst commentators that asset management evolved from other disciplines. For instance, Edwards (2010) argues that the concept is a relatively new description of activities that have been undertaken for many decades but up until recently in a fragmented way. This argument is shared by Piling (2010) who states that asset management is not a new discipline but rather it is a concept that has evolved over a number of decades from the industrial age. Throughout its development phases asset management has learned and incorporated other disciplines and techniques. Piling (2010) further argues that over time, there has been a gradual evolution of these different disciplines and techniques to the management of the business and management systems and frameworks that have supported them. Figure 2.5 shows the evolutionary path of asset management commencing in the 1970s with command and control approaches. However, from the 1970s, realisation by organisations started to take hold that the effective management of assets involved an enterprise wide approach. The enterprise approach is one where organisations look at their entire asset portfolio and the interactions between asset systems. This integrative and entrepreneurial wide approach is what is presently understood to be associated with asset management.

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Figure 2.5: The Evolution of Asset Management Source: Piling (2010)

However, there is no agreement as to the nature and type of business activities from which asset management originated. Woodhouse (2010a) is of the view that asset management evolved principally from UK’s North Sea oil and gas industry during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The catalysts for the change is said to have been the survival pressures of the late 1980s following the Piper Alpha disaster and the crash in oil price (Woodhouse, 2010a). These events forced a rethink on the part of these sectors. In response, the oil and gas industrial sectors introduced an initiative known as CRINE (Cost Reduction in the New Era). The initiative challenged many of the existing practices culminating, for most of the industry players, in the creation of business units with clear lines of budget authority, performance accountability, and active encouragement to challenge the status quo. The

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improvements that ensued led to significant cost reduction and a management model, akin to what is now termed asset management arose (Woodhouse, 2010a). There were certain features that characterised the management model that arose. The features included firstly, an increased focus on the role of assets that supported the gas and oil business activities. Secondly, there was increased interest in establishing how assets performed in supporting such business activities. Thirdly, the gas and oil industries came to greatly recognise the role and creative input of operators and technicians. Finally, the management of assets supporting gas and oil activities came to be based on ‚whole life‛ asset management plan. From these origins, asset management continued to evolve. The continued evolution resulted in growing interest by organisations such as the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) to codify best practice for managing assets. In 2004, there was an initial attempt by the IAM to capture the minimum requirements and best practices for managing assets. The Institute of Asset Management (IAM) and the British Standards Institution (BSI) launched a project on a standard for the management of physical assets known as BSI PASS 55. The BSI PAS 55 (BSI, 2008a) was and is now increasingly seen as the framework for good asset practices particularly in the engineering and utilities sectors. BSI PAS 55 is still the ‚publicly available specification‛ for the optimised management of physical assets and infrastructure.

Edwards (2010), on the other hand, suggests that privatisation of the rail and utility companies such as gas, water and electricity in the UK in the 1990s was a spur to asset management in the UK. After privatisation, the rail and utility entities started pursuing efficiencies through higher levels of productivity and outsourcing of various services. Edwards (2010), further argues that with time, these types of efficiency savings of increased productivity and outsourcing became harder to find. The rail and utility organisations responded by starting to challenge their asset renewal and maintenance activities to see if renewals could be deferred or planned maintenance intervals extended. In order to defer or plan maintenance, organisations needed better asset knowledge and control over their work management processes. These organisations then began to develop and implement asset

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registers and work management systems. Although the initiatives led to improved asset registers, the initiative did not deliver expected efficiency gains. Risk management and cost control remained a problem. Understanding, quantifying and managing risk, therefore, became increasingly important to unlocking the efficiencies associated with the optimisation of renewal and maintenance regimes. Coupled with the demands of the regulators about controlling longer term risks associated with asset management, led to pressures to provide better guidance on the holistic management of risk. The regulatory bodies of privatised utilities made it a requirement that these companies develop strategic asset management plans which contained their investment needs. The asset management plans were audited by the regulatory bodies for respective utilities. According to Worley Ltd (2000) many of the early practices in the UK privatised utility industry were subsequently adopted by public agencies in Australia and New Zealand and also provided the basis on which subsequent guidance to UK local government was based.

Regardless of the origins of asset management, its beneficial impacts are increasingly being appreciated by organisations in both the public and private sector. These beneficial effects are echoed by Piling (2010) for instance who argues that the integrative approach associated with asset management has contributed to a situation where organisations now see asset management as a powerful tool to help them add value to a business, rather than as just a cost centre. Asset management brings about value addition to organisations because the concept applies an enterprise-wide approach through the whole asset lifecycle.