Javier Tafur

An Integrated Approach to Strategic Asset Management

This chapter focuses on identifying and analysing the elements of Strategic Management for infrastructure and engineering assets and asks: what are the considerations and implications for adopting and implementing an integrated strategic asset management framework? We contend that corporate governance, policy, objectives and strategy as well as interagency collaboration should be considered as elements in a ‘staged approach’ to understanding how assets are managed within organisations. This will allow for a more comprehensive framework for engineering asset management that considers social and contextual elements. Asset governance details the policies and processes needed to acquire, utilise, maintain and account for an organisation’s assets. It stems from corporate governance principles and defines the management context in which engineering asset management is implemented. This will be examined to determine the appropriate relationship between organisational strategic management and strategic asset management to further the theoretical engagement with the maturity of strategy, policy and governance for infrastructure and engineered assets. The chapter draws on a document analysis of corporate reports and policy recommendations in terms of infrastructure and engineered assets. The chapter concludes that incorporating an integrated asset management framework can promote a more robust conceptualisation of public assets and how they combine to provide a comprehensive system of service outcomes.

Contribution of Computing Services to Benchmarking Asset Management Knowledge Management

Asset management has broadened from a focus on maintenance management to whole of life cycle asset management requiring a suite of new competencies from asset procurement to management and disposal. Well developed skills and competencies as well as practical experience are a prerequisite to maintain capability, to manage demand as well to plan and set priorities and ensure on-going asset sustainability. This paper has as its focus to establish critical understandings of data, information and knowledge for asset management along with the way in which benchmarking these attributes through computer-aided design may aid a strategic approach to asset management. The paper provides suggestions to improve sharing, integration and creation of asset-related knowledge through the application of codification and personalization approaches.

Small aircraft as a means of transport in Spain

Personal aviation represented 9% of the aircraft movement in Europe in 2006, and it is expected to grow over the coming years. According to the European Personal Air Transportation System (EPATS) study, Spain, along with France and Italy, are the European countries with greater growth prospects. The objective of this paper is to present research results focused on the potential growth of the personal aviation market in Spain and its regions. The research is mainly based on the secondary data of a survey (Movilia) from the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport.