The City of Cape Town (CCT) is set to focus on and grow its asset management maturity with the implementation of a strategic municipal asset management programme (SMAM), facilitated through the creation of an asset care centre (ACC) by asset performance management specialist PRAGMA Africa.
SMAM, which outlines ways of implementing asset management principles in municipal environments, was implemented in Water Services of the City of Cape Town in a pilot study. The programme requires the adoption of a continuous improvement process. For this the CCT bought PRAGMA`s asset management improvement programme (AMiP).
An AMiP base line assessment was conducted to first establish a point of reference for future assessments. The analysis determined that critical problem areas in the department included a lack of asset management planning through uncontrolled and uncoordinated performance of maintenance work, a reactive rather than proactive approach to maintenance, and poor asset lifecycle management.
The ACC was established to address these issues. The ACC is essentially a central hub where all maintenance- and asset-related information is recorded, analysed and stored while maintenance schedules, budgets and contractors are managed and proper work execution ensured. Work requests are called in and logged onto an asset management software system. These requests, along with preventative maintenance work, are then assigned to staff.
Asset histories are built up, providing valuable data for future procurement decisions. The centralisation of maintenance enforces tight adherence to service level agreements and affords the CCT improved control and negotiating power when dealing with service providers.
The ACC also ensures compliance with statutory requirements and safety, health and environmental regulations.
The pilot programme was launched in March 2004 at Cape Flats Wastewater Treatment Works Mechanical Workshop. The ACC site, which is situated off-site in N`dabeni, captures and records all required work as well as preventative maintenance schedules, generating reports including details of failure analysis.
"The ACC procedure is designed to ensure work is planned to effectively utilise resources and ensure all necessary spares are available to conduct maintenance work. Through a series of workshops, work planning and control procedures and policies are developed and implemented," says Karl Nepgen, divisional manager: ACC for PRAGMA Africa.
"The ACC has improved productivity at the site and raised the proactive versus reactive maintenance ratios in the division from the initial figure of 1:1 to around 5:1 - a significant improvement," says Carl Schneider, manager of the electrical engineering branch, technical services department of the Directorate: Water and Waste of the CMC administration of the City of Cape Town.
"The implementation of the ACC has improved planning and co-ordination as well as the consolidation and maximisation of shared best practices. The ACC is integrated with our SAP ERP system and the Work Scheduler/Planner decides whether identified work needs to be part of a maintenance plan or a reactive job."
The success of the pilot has seen the implementation of the ACC extended to cover the Wastewater Department sites, together with the Bulk Water Department. Reticulation will be incorporated in the next quarter.
"We anticipate that by bringing the whole of Water Services into the process we will be handling substantially more works orders per month than currently. Once the ACC covers the whole of the CCT, the scope of the project will enable us to cope with processing the city`s full quota of more than 14 000 works orders monthly," says Schneider.
Water Services has extended PRAGMA`s services to September 2005 to allow for a skills transfer process to train municipal staff to take over the ACC function.
The success of the ACC has also been seen by Public Housing, which will be using the ACC to implement asset management principles, facilitate skills transfer and to assist with the SAP Plant Maintenance backlog.
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