I'm curious as the outcomes of your benchmarking study. Was a report ever worked up?

Is the central question of Asset Management; we have limited resources, how should we allocate them?

Should we instead be asking, can technology allow us do deliver better services, with the same or fewer resources?

Both of the above photos were taken in McDonalds Road, Epping. The badly cracked concrete footpath shown in the photo on the right is located just beyond the end of the gravel footpath shown the other photo.

As a pedestrian I personally find the cracks in the footpath to be far less annoying than the overhanging grass, or the mud and puddles I have to dodge in the gravel section of the path after a bit of wet weather.

At the other end of the gravel footpath there is a section of newer footpath in really good condition. I wonder if it has been constructed to a higher standard because of the obvious defects in the older footpath, or history is destined to repeat itself?
I believe that a decision to change construction practices, as a result of an asset failure, would be a fantastic story to capture in a Council's corporate memory.

My personal thoughts are that replacing the gravel footpath with a concrete one is a higher priority than fixing the cracked section, even though this breaks the "renew before new" rule. Having said that I think there is a good argument for carefully investigating the reasons for the cracks in the older footpath before constructing the new one, so perhaps that is a good rationale for carrying out a repair.

I have several questions with regard to this scenario.

1. What would other Councils do in this situation?
2. How would you conduct an investigation into the causes of the concrete footpath failure?
3. Do you see this as a good sort of question to ask, as a part of community consultation?

Councils participating in our studies vary from very small and remote shires to large regional/city councils (including Cairns, Toowoomba and Ipswich in QLD).

In preparation to this study, I am interested in the views of Asset Managers on the functional capabilities of their systems (where do you think these technologies need to improve).

We publish extracts from our studies on our website – this link gives some idea of the data/analysis (http://www.tech-indicators.com.au/spotlight - it is about Business Intelligence capabilities in local government)
Thanks.

Also, who are participating and upto what level of depth the benchmarking will be?

Thank you very much for your quite humorous and nice post. I am 100% agree with you about it: “there will be a lot of Councils in NSW needing "HUGE" amounts of money to do this. In fact, most Councils will not be able to achieve this (even in the longer term).”

For that reason we determine the replacement cost for all the assets which have ASI greater than 3 not 2. But that figure is only for theory, just the filling up the column in the SS7 table. Because we are really unable to allocate that budget in the Capital Works. So we insert another column referring the Estimated Cost to bring back to Satisfactory Level considering financial ability. In this column we use some percentage of previously determined replacement cost (ASI>3).

My feeling is: Preparing the SS7 table is time consuming fruitless product; it will never reflect the true picture of council’s ability to bring back all the assets to satisfactory level unless the DLG will change the Definition of Satisfactory level.

Personally I do not think there is a lot of notice taken of SS7 as I have seen wide and glaring disparities in SS7 which no one (particularly in NSW state gov) even question.

For valuation we use proper (current) accounting standards formulations with "componentised fair value". We have a set of rates (probably from the same source as you for water & sewer), including rates for roads and roads ancillaries.
Properties we get an approved valuation and depreciate each year.
All our depreciation is done straight line (as I feel with anything else you may be kidding yourself! Also anything other than straight line punishes current or future rate payers - if you are not careful).

Most things in SS7 are simple, except to cost to bring to satisfactory - most councils(?) lick their finger here and stick it in the air and see what the wind blows up! Satisfactory to NSW Gov is defined at Condition Level = 2 (Good)?
NSW state gov under the new IP&R legislation (changes to the LGA) is significantly changing the reporting formats (and I think SS7 will disappear).

However there may still be a need to specify cost to bring to "good" condition (where NSW specifies good as Condition Level 2 in a 1 - 5 scheme as you describe. If this happens there will be a lot of Councils in NSW needing "HUGE" amounts of money to do this.
In fact, most Councils will not be able to achieve this (even in the longer term).

Condition however, will be a key measure and reporting of this will be required on an annual basis. NSW state will (I assume) look at the longer term view here, to make sure condition (over time) is not significantly deteriorating. (BIG picture stuff).

So in summary, I would not get too hung up on SS7 (which I feel will disappear) and be replaced by IP&R specific reporting.

Regards
Darron Passlow
Wingecarribee Shire

Q.1. How do you determine asset lives?

WSC: We follow the NSW Reference Rates Manual for determining the Asset Lives and Replacement Cost. That manual was published by the Ministry of Energy and Utilities, NSW.

Q.2. How do you depreciate your assets i.e. straight line or use other methodologies?

WSC: We use parabolic equation for calculating depreciation for ASI (Actual Service Index) 1 to 4, when ASI is greater than 4; we use a straight line equation. The Asset Condition categories are as follows:
1 Excellent
2 Good
3 Average
4 Poor
5 Very poor

Q. 3. What type of Service Index you are using for Condition Assessment?

WSC: Already mentioned in the above.

Q. 4. Which methodology you are using to prepare the Estimated Cost to bring to Satisfactory level for Special Schedule No 7?

WSC: Determining the replacement cost for all the assets which have ASI greater than 3.

Mahmud Kaiser
Asset Management Engineer
Water and Waste Services
Wyong Shire Council
P.O. Box 20
WYONG NSW 2259
Tel: 02 4350 5753
E-mail: ua.vog.wsn.gnoyw|resiaK.dumhaM#ua.vog.wsn.gnoyw|resiaK.dumhaM
WWW: http://www.wyong.nsw.gov.au/

Visit [http://www.michaelsampson.net] and have a look at "User Adoption Strategies".

Lots of good information and things you might need to consider in rolling out, say an asset management system to end users.

Darron Passlow

There have been some pretty positive comments about the idea on the IPWEA forum, which is very good to see.
I have added a few photos to the page you created.

http://lgam.wikidot.com/visual-library-for-asset-condition-rating

I have been thinking a bit more about hosting options and how to progress the project, and I think hosting the photos in a number of different locations might not be out of the question, as long as they are released to the public domain. I have experimented with adding information to photo below. If you download it and right click on it and then click "properties" and then "general" you will see the additional information I have added. We should have a think about what naming convention we might want to use, and what sort of metadata we want to attach to the photo.

I have a really good feeling about the project, I hope it gets the support it deserves.

I would like to build a portfolio of these standard pictures/images that could be used across Council boundaries.
This would help standardise how we all talk about condition of assets and then we could move to standard practices for improving/changing the condition.
It may aslo let us tie standard conditions to levels of service (as seen by our communities). This would be a nice and worthwhile outcome.
I look forward to your contributions. I will set up a "place holder" (if not already there), under Condition Assessment for Visual Condition Assessment. (Darron Passlow)

I have created an Activity Types page and I would love to get a discussion going about specific activities and if they are renewal, maintenance or operation. It is always a bit of a hot topic here at Bundy and I presume it probably is elsewhere.