Research Priorities for Successful Asset Management

WERF convened a workshop on March 21-22, 2002, for the purpose of characterizing the spectrum of asset management programs across public water and wastewater utilities and recommending a research agenda to promote the next generation of tools for reducing risk and improving competitiveness. WERF's goals for the workshop were to: Survey, examine, and document effective asset management approaches. Construct a view of the state of implementation of asset management and identify barriers to more broad-based implementation. Pinpoint where improved tools and technical approaches could enhance decision making, confidence, efficiency, communication, and results. Determine and distinguish differences between large and small utilities? approaches to asset management. Prepare a prioritized list of research initiatives to address the industry needs and develop a conceptual scope and budget for these research projects. A recent WERF Subscriber Survey supports the view that asset management is a priority issue for utilities. Utility respondents ranked asset management 5th among 20 categories by priority, and sixty percent of respondents gave asset management a priority ranking of 1 or 2. Contents Premises and Foundations of the Workshop State of the Practice Level of Tool Development Infrastructure Security Pre-Workshop Survey Results International Participants Presentations Workshop Activities and Research Recommendations