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I think the Victoria Grants Commission explanation of Bridges and Major Culverts would be clearer if the word "major" was deleted as per below:
"Bridges and Major Culverts include bridges and major culverts of six (6) metres and over in length (measured along the centre line of the carriageway)."
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
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Here are a few examples of memes that I'd like to see take hold in the local government community. Does anyone else have any memes they would like to see take hold?.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
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Thanks, Bruce.
I thought that was probably the case, but I haven't seen too many of them around, and I thought it would be worth double checking.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
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Hi Wayne
I checked with Rob Calligaris and he said its just to slow the water so it enters the pit and doesn't overshoot.
Regards
Bruce Janke
Can anyone tell me exactly what this structure is designed to do? It is rock studded concrete apron located upstream of a grated pit adjacent to a railway underpass. I am guessing it is designed to dissipate the energy of the stormwater entering the pit to ensure their is no overshoot on to the railway line below, but I'm not 100% sure that this is its function.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
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When I was working at Mildura Rural City Council we started using the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) to improve the way we did things. The system certainly had potential, but I thought it had 3 major failings.
1. It was too industry/production centric, and In my opinion at least, not particularly suited to the challenges of local government.
2. It was firmly stuck in the 20th century - everything was done on butchers paper - there was no attempt to incorporate things like wikis and social media.
3. The system was locked down with restrictive copyright, rather than free and open.
The Australian Centre for Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) was supposedly considering developing an open local government centric business improvement framework a year or two ago, but that effort seems to have died before it was even started.
The ABEF wasn't rocket science, and it seems to me that it shouldn't be too hard to develop / crowd source something similar but better in no time.
I have been thinking about this for quite a while, and have put together a bit of an "improvement checklist" that I hope I might grow into a useful business improvement tool one day.
http://www.lgam.info/business-improvement-checklist
I was hoping that those of you with an interest in business improvement might be able to point me in the direction of any good free business improvement resources and/or help me improve the checklist by giving me a bit of feed back about it.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
I know there are a number of organisations and projects out there that are trying to encourage collaboration between Councils, but ironically many of them don't seem to be that good at collaboration themselves.
I think part of the answer might be to build an organisation/platform independent community of interest - a group of Local Government people interested in inter-Council collaboration that are willing to hold regular discussions in a range of different forums.
I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who would categorise themselves as "interested in inter-Council collaboration", and if they are in contact with like minded individuals how they communicate with them?
Also I have listed below a few potential places where discussions could be started.
Innovation and Knowledge Exchange Network
http://www.iken.net.au/
IPWEA
http://www.ipwea.org.au/Home/
Ozloop
http://apsozloop.ning.com/
GovCampau
http://govcampau.wikispaces.com/
eGovernment Resource Centre
http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/
Gov2.0Australia
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!forum/gov…
LGWebNetwork
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/lgwebnetw…
Local Government & Municipal Knowledge Base
http://www.lgam.info
Google+
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
What are the most important characteristics of an Asset Management System?
I've already posted this question in a couple of other places, but I thought it would be worthwhile posting it here as well to make it easy to find.
It seems to me that Councils often fall into the trap of expecting an Asset Management System to solve all of their AM related problems, and as a result look for and/or specify a system with every conceivable functionality they can think of.
From what I have seen, heard and experienced, it is very common for Councils to purchase a very expensive AM system with all the bells and whistles only to leave it expand »sitting on the shelf, or to abandon it after 5 or 10 years and start afresh because the system is to complex to manage.
I personally believe that good data, good business rules and good documentation are far more important than the software side of asset management, and that Councils should be looking for the simplest, cheapest AM software system that can possibly do the job.
My six most important criteria for an AM system are:
1. simple & intuitive to use
2. easy to input data into (especially bulk data)
3. capable of surviving the departure of key staff (good documentation helps here)
4. open (don't want black box calculations that you can't understand)
5. flexible (don't want to be beholden to the developer to write reports and queries)
6. stable (don't want it crashing and losing data all the time)
I'd also like it to have a web-based interface with a unique URL for every query and report, but that's another story …
What are your key criteria for a good asset management system?
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
I think a really good way of improving raterpayer satisfaction would be to set up a transparent mechanism for turning ratepayer ideas and preferences into projects and policies.
Perhaps a well publicised ideascale-like site or tool, together with clear rules for how popular ideas are turned into projects would be a way to accomplish this.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
Further to the previous question, I can't see any value in including a sunset clause in an AM Policy. I can understand the use of a sunset clause where a party or interest group have reservations about the content of the policy/legislation, and want to make sure any detrimental clauses cannot be retained indefinitely against their wishes. I don't however see how this could apply to an AM policy, which should be the subject of continual improvement.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
It seems like a no-brainer to me that we should be working with other Councils whenever we can to solve problems of mutual interest.
I have a vision of open collaboration between Councils.
A vision were any person from any Council can submit an improvement idea to a central idea repository.
A vision Where those ideas can be discussed and critiqued by a wide range Council employees and interested third parties.
A vision where Councils work together on a regular basis to reduce duplication of effort and deliver better services to their communities.
Does anyone want to help me make this vision come true?
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
It seems to me that the best way to make someone attracted to a particular role, is to find them something interesting to do that is suited to their personal skill set.
Not always easy to do, especially if there is only a couple of projects to choose from - Thats why I think Councils should set up an AM Project Register - a list of AM related projects with information about the goal of the project, and what skills & resources are thought to be required to get the project up and running.
Now a single Council, even a large Council is not always going to have the people it needs with the skills it needs to sucessfully and efficiently implement the project. The usual answer to this dilema is to employee a consultant, but I think there is a better solution to this problem - for Councils and for Council staff.
I'd like to see Councils compile an Australia wide AM project register, and allow their employees to work on a project of personal interest to them (and relevant to their personal skill set) at least one day a week.
When people work on projects that genuinely interest them, their output is generally high quality and it is more likey they will come up with an innovative solution.
This system would encourage industry wide collaboration, and knowledge exchange and hopefully reduce duplication of effort accross the sector.
Now, I know a lot of subscribers to this forum are consultants so I'd to point out there would still be a role for consultants in this system, but that it would be working on projects that are of common interest to all Councils, and for which their is no expertise within the Council workforce.
What does everyone think? What generic AM related projects would be of benefit to your Council?
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
It seems to me that the following three things are required before you can share your knowledge.
I suspect that at lot of people having a willingness to share, but lack the confidence or tools to do so.
Do you think I'm right or am I missing an important piece of the puzzle?
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
Hi all, I am very interested to hear about your vision for Asset Management at your organisation.
My vision is pretty simple - I can sum it up in a couple of points:
1. I want to make all asset and asset related information available to everyone within our organisation via an encyclopedic interface.
2. I want to develop a culture where all where all asset management related knowledge is freely, openly and enthusiastically exchanged with other Councils in order to reduce duplication of effort within our Council and across the Local Government sector as a whole.
With regard to point (1) I'd like to add that I think that documents with rigid structures are very limiting - and the the way of the future is to store information in a modular way, and to aggregate it back up to suit a need or satisfy an external requirement. For example it should be possible to generate a live graph in HTML format with a unique URL showing the condition profile of your road network using your asset management system. This graph could be simulataneously embedded in your Asset Management Plan, your Road Management Plan, and on your Council Encyclopedia page about Road Condition.
A person interested in road condition would search the Council Encyclopedia, but at the same time the AMP and RMP would be automatically updated. (It may be necessary to create PDF snapshots of some documents for various purposes, but on the whole I believe live documents are much more useful.)
Anyway that's my vision. What's yours?
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
Just wondering if any Councils other than Shellharbour City Council are using the Bang the Table Budget Allocator?
http://bangthetable.com/products/budget-allocator/demo-site/
Looks like a nice idea - I definitely think that crowd sourcing the capital works prioritisation process, could be a win-win for Council and the community.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
Hi all,
I am in the process of reviewing our Asset Management Policy. The existing policy is a pretty reasoble document, and probably doesn't need a lot of work, but I have been thinking about what it is that we are really trying to accomplish with it.
One thing I'm pretty sure of, is that there isn't much point in putting a lot of effort into updating it, if it ends up sitting on a shelf somewhere and no-one ever refers to it.
Very interested to hear from anyone who has REALLY benefited from updating their policy and how?
How often do you refer to it? How it does it help you better manage your assets?
Regards,
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
Thanks for the post Peter, and welcome to the site.
I mentioned Tristop on the Vertical Footpath Joint Displacement page eariler this year.
Looking forward to seeing the photos.
Regards,
Wayne Eddy
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
I have just joined this site and make my 1st forum post. I will post some footpath photos with TripStop installed soon. We have been selling our product TripStop see www.tripstop.net since 2003 to Councils who are Innovative in that they wanted a viable and long term solution to displaced footpaths. To date we have not recorded a single failure at any TripStop joint where TripStop was installed correctly as per our Installation guide. Installing TripStop is easy and similar to installing Key joints except easier. Our longest known site backed with a testimonial [on our website] from the City of Bayside, Victoria was installed in 2003 and continues to protect today Sept 2012. The short version is Bayside used to replace 3 panels of concrete every 13 months at this site. 9 years in all have elapsed with zero maintenance saving ar 7 life cycles that 3 slabs x 7 cycles = 21 slabs at ar $200 a pop = $4200 for a cost of ar $80 for the TripStop. We have another site in the city of Knox which was built in the early 1980s and had some TripStops installed in 2005 which we will publish a real life case study very soon. Bottom line on this is ar 10% of the original slabs are still there after only 32 years. Knox asset life is 50 years. If the site had TripStop installed [i.e. Knox specified it at no cost to Knox they would have inherited a maintenance free footpath. ar 90% replaced early at a cost of ar $180 a pop. TripStop wasn’t invented until 2000 so Knox couldn’t have done it but they can now and so can every Council. For example the city of Sutherland NSW specify TripStop for all new sub-divisions.
Here is an excellent video put together by Terry Dodds of City Council about the need for sustainably managing assets.
Wayne Eddy
Epping, Australia
LGAM Knowledge Base
Contact via Google+
Hi Wayne,
Thank you for that link. I have had a look at the presentation before and thus how I found your site. From what I have seen you have lots of experience implementing wikis and lots more.
Apart from the presentation do you have any documentation, business cases or live examples of a working BCS.
In your experience was the SharePoint wiki meeting your needs? Did it have the functionality that you wanted?
Carl
