Strategic infrastructure asset management: The way forward

Organisations owning and managing infrastructure asset are constantly striving to obtain the greatest lifetime value from their infrastructure assets. Many such organisations have adopted the concept of 'asset management' with the aim of improving the performance of their infrastructure assets. This paper evaluates the adoption of asset management to improve performance in the context of organisations managing infrastructure assets. Relevant previous research studies on main barriers to the adoption of asset management are reviewed. Analysis of these findings, together with deductive reasoning, leads to the development of the proposed improvement strategies. Three issues were identified as barrier to the advancement of the concept of asset management. They are (1) lack of recognition (2) fragmentation; and (3) growing complexity. To overcome these issues, this paper suggests that the organisations manage infrastructure assets must (1) adopt a more strategic approach in the management of infrastructure assets (2) develop a framework of strategic infrastructure asset management processes, and (3) identify the core capabilities needed in the management of infrastructure assets. This paper presents the direction for further research to advance the concept of asset management in the management of infrastructure asset.