Introduction

Every year, global managers of infrastructure assets (utility electric, gas and water assets; air, ground and sea transportation assets; gas and oil production, transportation and refining assets; and government military and non-military assets) spend many hundreds of billions of (euros, dollars, pounds, yen, RMB, Rand, etc.) in acquiring, inspecting, maintaining, repairing and replacing their assets. 

The term “Asset Management” has many meanings among suppliers of technology solutions to industry.  However, since 1994, for UMS Group and our infrastructure clients, the "Asset Management Model" has always been a powerful business approach that defined the key roles and accountabilities for managing the infrastructure business and encompassed the full spectrum of decision-making process, skills and technology capabilities required for success. It also embraced the leading techniques and tools used to optimize actions and spending to achieve the maximum lifecycle value-to-cost ratio from infrastructure investment within an acceptable asset risk profile.

As Infrastructure Asset Management has evolved over the past two decades, UMS Group and other more advanced practitioners have established organization and functional standards that characterize a company’s Asset Management maturity within a spectrum of competencies.

In an effort to articulate and codify these standards, an industry working group drafted and released the first formal Asset Management Specification (Publicly Available Specification Number 55) in 2004.  Published by the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) and the British Standards Institute, PAS 55 specifies the process and competency requirements for any asset management system to be used to manage physical infrastructure assets or components thereof.

PAS 55 is applicable to all sizes of business, from small to medium enterprises through to multinationals, and to any organization that wishes to:

	Implement, maintain and improve an asset management system;
	Assure itself of compliance with associated asset management policy and strategy;
	Demonstrate such compliance to others.

To ensure consistency with other related business system standards (e.g. ISO 9001 and 14001) and to facilitate its future alignment and integration, PAS 55 was structured to allow organizational and process audits and certification activities by consultancies and other entities experienced in Asset Management and conversant with PAS 55 requirements.

UMS Group has a base of experience in applying PAS 55 to client engagements and has become an active participant in the evolution of the PAS 55 standard.

UMS Group’s PAS 55 Experience

In the late 1990’s, UMS Group established a rigorous methodology for assessing a client’s Asset Management maturity and identifying gaps to leading Asset Management practices. This methodology has been utilized to assess scores of global client organizations in the gas, electric and water utility and transportation sectors.  In addition, UMS Group has facilitated more than a dozen major corporate transformations from functional organizations to process-based Asset Management organizations.

Since the 2004 release of PAS 55, UMS Group has adapted its methodologies to align them with PAS 55 terminology, while retaining the proprietary UMS Group tools and delivery systems for PAS 55 assessments.  And we have honed our client transformation organization concepts, performance measurement frameworks, cultural and leadership development and decision support tools to enhance the ultimate value and contribution from UMS Group for clients at any stage in their Asset Management journey.

With regard to thought leadership of PAS 55, UMS Group is a member of the Review and Validation Panel that is updating PAS 55 in 2007 and 2008 to reflect improvements in Asset Management techniques and tools, and advances in infrastructure management technology since the initial issuance of PAS 55 in 2004.  This update is being conducted in compliance with British Standards Institution requirements.  UMS Group is the sole North American consultancy involved in this PAS 55 update with branch offices on three continents.

In applying PAS 55 to UMS Group client engagements, we are offering and implementing the following types of services:

	PAS 55 Orientation and Training Workshops
	PAS 55 Readiness Assessments and Diagnostics
	PAS 55 Pre-Certification Audits
	PAS 55 Implementation and Transformation Facilitation
	Asset Management Information System Framework Design and Implementation