Below is a list of key asset management concepts.

Asset management: A formalized and integrated approach to planning and budgeting for municipal infrastructure needs, which considers a wide variety of data from across an organization with the long-term vision of the community in mind.

Asset inventory: A list of assets owned and the attributes of the assets. Basic inventory data includes attributes such as size, material, location and installation date. Expanded inventory data includes additional information such as location (coordinates), criticality, and supplementary information that is relevant for the asset class (such as type, make, model, and design capacity).

Asset management (AM) plan: A detailed plan that outlines how assets will be managed in one or more service areas. An asset management plan identifies how assets will be maintained and renewed, and the cost, level of service and risk considerations in each service area.

Asset management (AM) policy: Outlines a municipality’s commitment and mandated requirements for asset management. A policy is linked to the municipality’s strategic objectives and is shaped by its values and priorities.

Asset management (AM) program: The set of policies, people, practices and processes that make up a municipality’s formal approach to asset management.

Asset management (AM) roadmap: A step-by-step plan outlining the actions, responsibilities, resources and time scales needed to implement and deliver asset management objectives.

Asset management (AM) strategy: A document that lays out the direction, framework and approach for implementing the community’s asset management policy.

Capital plan: A plan for facility and infrastructure investments, including cost and timing information on asset renewal, decommissioning, disposal and investments in new assets.

Critical assets: Assets that provide extremely important functions in service delivery, especially those for which there is no available redundancy or substitution. The consequences of failure of critical assets are serious.

Cross-functional team (asset management team): A team that works across departments or disciplines to ensure that decisions integrate all relevant perspectives and priorities.

Financial information: Information about the costs of acquiring, operating, maintaining and replacing the asset.

Levels of service: The parameters, or combination of parameters, that reflect the social, political, environmental and economic outcomes that the organization delivers. The parameters can include safety, customer satisfaction, quality, quantity, capacity, reliability, responsiveness, environmental acceptability, cost and availability. (Source: ISO 55000:2014)

Long-term financial plan: A plan that balances the required costs and funding sources to meet infrastructure and service needs, over a minimum of 10 years.

Risk: The product of the likelihood and consequence of an undesirable event or circumstance. Risk includes both asset risks (e.g. a pipe failing) and strategic risks (e.g. insufficient funds for renewal of critical assets).

You’ve decided that you want to pursue an asset management project with the help of a consultant. Read this tip sheet if you want to:

• Learn how to actively engage with the consultant to ensure that the outcomes meet your needs
• Better understand how your asset management deliverable is being developed
• Build knowledge and employee capacity internally while working with the consultant
• Be ready to take the next steps in your asset management journey once the consultant’s work is complete

A common challenge: If employees are not engaged during the project planning stage and if they don’t work with the consultant during the project, you may find that the deliverables don’t dovetail with your municipality’s needs, or that you are not prepared to follow through with next steps. 

Tips and strategies

Before the project begins:

• Brief all relevant municipal parties on the project (e.g. council, employees from varying departments).
  • Begin with a briefing on asset management, if necessary (see "Tools for introducing employees and council to asset management" below).
  • In the consultant’s scope of work, require a presentation or workshop by the consultant to introduce employees (and possibly council) to the project. This can help to establish engagement, align expectations and ensure open communication.
• Involve employees from the beginning (and throughout the project) to cultivate buy-in and ownership of the project.
  • Get the team’s input on the Request for Proposals (RFP) so that they understand the work to be done, their role and its importance to the community.
  • Acknowledge and communicate the level of effort that may be needed to provide the consultant with information required to complete the work.

"By including all departments in our asset management training, strategy development sessions, and council session, their key personnel are now on board with and fully engaged in our Asset Management Implementation Strategy."

 – Municipality of the District of Bonnyville No. 87, AB (population 11,661)

• Put a strategy and schedule in place for communicating progress with employees and council. This will assist in keeping the project on schedule, communicating success, and keeping the municipal team connected to progress.
• Plan for implementation or follow-up.
  • Build steps into the scope of the work that will help you prepare for next steps once the consultant service is complete.
  • Include an evaluation and planning milestone at 80 percent project completion. At this time, consultants can work with key team members and advise on a plan for next steps.

During the project:

• Make time for employees to be involved in the project. For example, end users can shadow the consultant or receive training from the consultants.
• Keep relevant employees in the loop and involved in any processes that they will be expected to continue as part of their role.
  • Consider offering short milestone presentations to the wider employee audience (and council if appropriate) as part of the project.
• Offer internal training on any new tools, data or processes, if needed.

"It was much better to train in a group and get others on [the] management team involved because in the past it was mostly just a financial role. [This] expands the knowledge of the management team and ensures that they are a part of managing their assets within their departments."

– Township of Havelock-Belmont-Methuen, ON (population 4,530)

As the project wraps up:

• Ensure that any recommendations align with your municipality’s strategic objectives.
• Complete a final review of the deliverables and compare them with the contract. 
• Have the end users participate in evaluating the quality of the work and identify any questions they may have.
• Ensure that knowledge has been transferred, so that you can take the next steps within your organization, or have a plan in place for internal training.
• Make sure you understand the actions needed to move forward and have a plan for next steps in place.

After project completion:

• Communicate results and next steps to council and employees. If you hold a presentation (internally or externally), have employees lead the presentation. If appropriate, ask the consultant to present alongside you.
• Plan and follow through with next steps and continue the work internally. Hold periodic team meetings to keep next steps on track.

If your municipality is developing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for asset management services, read this tip sheet for information on:

• How to narrow down the number of proposals you receive in response to a future RFP
• Developing an RFP that will yield proposals that are easy to compare and evaluate
• How to feel more confident about making key choices during the procurement process
• Ensuring that the consultant you hire meets your needs and provides the services you are expecting

A common challenge: After issuing a Request for Proposals, municipalities may receive a wide range of responses with vastly different prices and offerings, making it difficult to select a consultant. Sometimes a municipality is well into a project with a consultant before realizing that the work is not what they were anticipating.

Tips and strategies

Before starting the procurement process:

• Clarify your objectives.
  • Complete a needs assessment.
  • Confirm your assumptions with decision-makers and team members.
  • Understand and articulate how this work fits into your strategic objectives and plan, internal processes and organizational culture.
• Identify the type of service you require. In asset management, consultants provide two main types of service:
  • Completing a clearly defined task, such as a condition assessment of specific infrastructure
  • Coaching you through a process, where your municipal team will do much of the work and learn from the process
• Consider your available resources (municipal team, time and funds).
• Consider the employee time required during the project.
  • If your consultant is completing a task for you, you’ll need to identify someone to oversee the project, provide any needed information, and review the work.
  • If your consultant is coaching you through a process, you’ll need team members who can undertake the work.
• Consider whether your municipality has the capacity to utilize the resulting work effectively.
• Establish your budget and time frame for the work.
  • Know your budget before determining the scope of the work.
  • Include a contingency fund for unexpected costs.
  • Consider partnering with other municipalities or bundling similar work.
  • Consider partnering with non-profit organizations who may complete some or all of the work.

"With regards to the building condition surveys, next time we would try to narrow the scope of work perhaps reducing the number of submissions and increasing the quality of work. Also would involve more departmental supervisors from the onset of the project."

– Town in Ontario (population 9,000)

Define the scope of work to be done. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the project?
• Which people and departments will be impacted?
• Why is the work a priority?
• Will this work impact our asset management plan (requiring an update) or our asset management policy?
• What is our timeline for completion of the work and specific milestones?
• Will employees need training in order to use the results of the consultant’s work? Depending on your budget, you may choose to include that training in the scope.
• Do we want to include a meeting or presentation to the asset management steering committee, senior management team or council?
• Will engaging neighbouring municipalities at any stage add value to the project?

While developing the Request for Proposals:

• Clearly articulate all your expectations—both the deliverables and the other outcomes you hope to achieve. Be specific.
• Decide whether you want to declare your available budget. You have two options:
  •  Declare your budget and compare proposals based on what is being offered for that budget.
  •  Avoid declaring your budget, but outline the scope of work in detail, and compare proposals based on price.
• Where possible, use common “asset management” language. Tools like FCM’s Asset Management Readiness Scale can help.

"A municipality receives report submissions from multiple engineering firms over the years. The City has experienced situations where a consultant would like to develop a report in a template that is not consistent with previous reports received. We provide a detailed and standardized scope of work to ensure consistency of deliverables to achieve the project goal."

– City of Greater Sudbury, ON (population 164,926)

 Key

Remember to build in flexibility as you plan this work! A well-defined scope at the onset will help avoid future surprises, and you can leave room to review and update the scope or deliverables as the project unfolds.

What is asset management software?

While there is no official definition of “asset management software,” this document refers to applications designed to help you collect, manage, store, visualise and/or analyze your asset-related data. Options range significantly in price and functionality from inexpensive applications like programmed excel spreadsheets, to more costly and integrated software suites that can incorporate any mix of inventory, financial, maintenance, and asset life-cycle functions.

Ask yourself...

1. Do we need it?
Asset management is a business practice, not a software solution. Many communities find that a spreadsheet is all they need to get started.

2. Are we ready for it?
Software is only useful when it is populated with good data and supports sound business practices. Before buying software, collect and organize your data and put your asset management processes in place. It is also critical to allocate budget for keeping data current and maintaining the software system.

Important tips

• Make software a team decision
  Asset management is cross-functional. The purchase of asset management software should include the same group of professionals from across your organization.
• Know the outputs you want to get from your software
  What analysis do you want the software to do? What business processes will it feed? How do you want the information to be displayed or reported?                  
  • Hint: Try mapping your requirements using a spreadsheet first!
• Training and implementation support are essential to success
  Have a plan for training staff and a succession plan in case key staff leave. It takes time and energy to adopt a new software system – budget for training and implementation support for staff across your organization.

Download the guide.

This content was developed by the Technical Working Group of FCM's Municipal Asset Management Program. The Technical Working Group is comprised of an exceptional group of municipal practitioners and experts from across Canada.

Are you planning to work with a consultant on an asset management project? Read on if you:

• Plan to share the knowledge or tools developed by your consultant
• Would like to publish portions of the material created by the consultant—either on a website or in some other form
• Expect to edit, update or modify any final products (such as plans, asset data or other materials) in the future

A common challenge: Did you know that hiring a consultant to develop a product does not necessarily grant you the ability to modify, update or share the material? The consultant may retain sole copyright on deliverables, unless you specify a different arrangement. And if you don’t identify the file format you want, you might end up with something that you can view but not edit.

Tips and strategies

While developing the Request for Proposals (RFP):

• Consult with employees to ensure that you understand which software and file formats they can work with.
• If your project includes creating a resource or tool that involves software new to your team, consider adding an employee training component to the RFP.
• Stipulate the file format(s) you require for the final deliverables.
• State the type of copyright you will retain for all deliverables.

At the contracting stage:

• Use your own contract template (if available).
• Ensure that you retain the appropriate copyright to the deliverables. Include wording that says you have either copyright assignment or copyright license (see “A note on copyright” below). Consult your legal counsel for examples of specific wording you can use.
• Specify your preferred software format for deliverables. Require all documents and data to be delivered in a format that you can edit (such as Microsoft Word or GIS-compatible files) if that is desirable, in addition to any non-editable versions you would like (such as PDF).
• Include in the contract your right to approve the deliverables.

As the project wraps up:

• Ensure that all the deliverables are complete, satisfactory and in the requested format(s).
• Check for the appropriate copyright statements (as stipulated in the contract) in the deliverables.
• Compare the results with the contract.

Key

The freedom to share and publish knowledge and tools is key to building asset management communities of practice that benefit everyone. This is an important consideration for both municipalities and consultants when establishing copyright agreements.

So, you’ve decided to hire a consultant to help your municipality move forward on its asset management journey. How can you ensure a successful partnership?

Hiring a consultant to support your asset management process can be an important strategic decision and opportunity, but if you’ve never hired a consultant for this type of work it can be difficult to anticipate the possible challenges. One of the most powerful things you can do to ensure success is to be aware of common challenges before you develop your Request for Proposals—and put strategies in place to avoid those challenges.

We’ve identified three common challenges experienced by municipalities in their work with consultants, and some simple actions you can take to steer clear of these issues and enjoy a positive relationship with your consultant and get the outcomes you want.

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• Tailored guidance: RECs offer specialized support, including conducting energy walkthrough assessments, supporting with funding applications, providing technical assistance and working with consultants

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• Hands-on coaching: Our coaches work closely with you through one-on-one sessions, ensuring you have the knowledge and tools to succeed

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Get in touch with a REC in your region

For more information about the REC program, visit our FAQ page.  

How Regional Energy Coaches can make your next project become a reality 

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…thank you to the Centre for connecting CMHC, FCM, and our team together this morning to talk about how our organization continues to move towards expansion and/or renovation of our housing. Our team got so much out of that session and it could not have happened without your facilitation.”

—Housing Provider