ASSET MANAGEMENT IN HIGH PERFORMANCE ORGANIZATIONS
A Roadmap to High Performance: ISO 55000 and a Management Systems Approach to Asset Management
www.assetleadership.net www.4tellsolutions.com Asset Management is About More than Managing Assets
What does it mean to be a high performance organization when it comes to asset management? And what is an asset, anyway? The definition of the term “asset” can be very broad. Indeed, an asset can be considered any resource needed by and available to an organization to accomplish its work. However, physical assets such as real estate, infrastructure, building systems, fleets, specialized equipment and other personal property are what drive most asset management programs.
As for what it means to be a high performance organization, here are six characteristics that all such organizations have in common:
1. Well organized to accomplish their business1; i.e., roles are clearly understood, responsibilities are aligned with accountability, appropriate communications and coordination takes place across all management “silos” and between all levels of the organization.
2. Aware of risks and opportunities in their business environment and in everything they do.
3. Performance oriented, i.e., they understand how to measure success in the business they’re in and have good systems to do so, business goals are clearly communicated from top management to operational activities, and performance against those goals is clearly communicated from operational levels to top management.
4. Well informed; i.e., have good information about the environment they operate in and on all the important aspects of their business activities.
5. Adequately resourced; businesses that are less than ideally financed and staffed must be good at optimizing their uses of limited resources.
6. Exceptionally good at the business they’re in.
1 Note: we use the term “business” to include the activities involved in accomplishing the organization’s mission, whether or not they are for-profit business activities.