Towards an assessment tool for the strategic management of asset criticality

Many organisations in both the private and public sectors rely on engineering assets to provide products and services. The failure of these assets, or their components, can have undesirable consequences for the organisation. Failure consequences can be measured in terms of their impact on the safety of personnel, the public and the environment, and on their impact on desired levels of service or output. Existing decision tools for determining the criticality of asset failure are typically rigorous and detailed. They are necessarily time consuming methodologies. A strategic management approach seeks to focus the effort and cost of such detailed analysis more appropriately. It recognises the value of the expert knowledge of those directly engaged in operations and maintenance functions in supporting a strategic approach to the assessment of asset criticality. The purpose of such a tool is to quickly and effectively identify critical assets within a facility to assist strategic decision making. The assessment tool being trialled is to support the Maintenance function of organisations and therefore it is focussed on the Operations and Maintenance phase of the asset life cycle. This paper presents an overview of the alternative methodology being trialled and some examples of its practical application.