Challenges and barriers to establishing infrastructure asset management

Abstract

Purpose -The increased need for, and maintenance of, infrastructure creates challenges for all agencies that manage infrastructure assets. To assist with these challenges, agencies implement asset management systems. This exploratory research investigated and compared the importance of barriers faced by agencies establishing transportation asset management systems in the US and Libya to contrast a case of a developed and developing country.Design/ methodology/approach -A literature review identified twenty-eight potential barriers for implementing an asset management system. Practitioners who participated in decisionmaking processes in each country were asked to rate the importance of each barrier in an online survey questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Kendall Concordance W, and Mann-Whitney were used to analyze the collected data.Findings -Through an analysis of 61 completed questionnaires, 14 barriers were identified as important by both the US and Libyan practitioners. Eleven additional barriers, primarily in the areas of political and regulatory barriers, were determined to be important only for Libya. These 11 barriers provide reasonable insights into asset management systems' barriers for developing countries.Practical implications -The barriers identified from this research can assist decision makers to recognize and overcome these barriers when implementing asset management systems, while recognizing the importance of country conditions. Originality/ value -The research identified standard barriers to implementing asset management systems. It also identified barriers that were specific to the country context, such as political and regulatory barriers in Libya. When viewed with the asset management literature, the results show broad applicability of some asset management barriers and the need to contextualize to country context (e.g., developing countries) for other barriers.

Strategic Aspects of Asset Management: An Overview of Current Research

“…Information and decision networks are crucial in asset design, risk management, and optimization of asset management processes; thus, they increase the role of information management, communications, relationship management, and system integration (including integration with operations) [10]. Organizational structure seems to be a supporting medium facilitating these processes [51].…”

Organisational performance and the use of multiple performance measures in an emerging market

“…Only a few of them have been conducted in non-manufacturing settings and/or emerging economies (Yongvanich and Guthrie, 2009;Ismail, 2007). There has been significant research in Libya focusing on the banking industry (Musbah et al, 2016;Agley-Mensah, 2017;Elnihewi et al, 2017), quality management (Abusa and Gibson, 2013;Ahmad and Elhuni, 2014), asset management (Beitelmal et al, 2017), healthcare management (Imhmed et al, 2014) and marketing performance (Elkrghli, 2017). The use of financial measures is still of great importance to most companies in both developing and developed countries (Mintz and Currim, 2013;Al Sawalqa, 2011;Fakhri, 2010;Neely, 2008;Ismail, 2007).…”

A unified work breakdown structure-based framework for building asset management

“…The remaining classification systems in the literature are generic, making them ineffective in locating building assets inside various types of buildings (Grussing, 2014; Eweda et al , 2015; Beitelmal et al , 2017). These systems present various complications owing to their flaws.…”