SUMMARY
Asset Information Handover Guidelines from Planning and Construction to Operations and Maintenance
Airports are composed of a complex set of interconnected systems that can rival those of a small city. Conducting timely, systematic, maintenance activities on those systems with adequate resources is challenging, but doing so is necessary to optimize airport operations and avoid negative impacts on airlines, the traveling public, and tenants. Succeeding at such work often depends on the accuracy and quality of data available to airport managers at several levels, as well as the resident maintenance staff.
Asset information handover, or asset data transition, from the initiation of a design and construction project to actual ownership involving maintenance and management, involves a great deal of data (asset information), regardless of project size. Most airport organizations hire consulting teams to help with major capital programs and projects, while some airports rely solely on internal staff. Whether consulting teams or internal staff take on this role, of course, also depends on the size and complexity of a design and construction project.
It is generally acknowledged within the industry that project owners don’t consistently receive the asset information and data that they need to manage and maintain a newly constructed asset. Organizations do not obtain necessary asset information and data because often internal staff do not understand the stipulated requirements in contracts with design and construction teams.
The challenges of asset information handover from design/construction teams to an asset owner are compounded by limited airport staff resources and the failure to properly identify roles and responsibilities regarding stipulated project closeout requirements and who or what group is to receive asset information when a project is complete.
Asset information handover is a complex topic that often requires an interactive discussion between the design/construction teams and airport staff that will maintain and manage the constructed assets. Airports have a responsibility to ensure that constructed assets (sometimes referred to as “capital assets” or the “built environment”) operate and function for purposes that are more far-reaching than the traveling public boarding planes. Airports are extremely large capital investments within a city, county, or municipal government area that contribute significantly to their communities by providing jobs and supporting tourism and therefore adding revenue to the businesses within a community.
Airports are composed of numerous types of constructed assets. These include the terminal building and runways, firefighting and rescue facilities, cargo and warehouse buildings, parking areas (which are sometimes multi-level garages), and much more. To ensure continued functionality, airports must address asset management, those operations that
include various preventive and corrective maintenance activities, as well as manage these constructed assets to understand what capital and operational expenditures are required to ensure airport operations. Some airports understand asset management as having a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS); for others, asset management is knowing every data attribute available for each constructed asset in a building, roadway, or utility and which department or group is responsible for that asset. Ideally, the asset management information and data should be provided during the project closeout process in formats that are useful to the airport maintenance and capital asset management staff.
Project Scope and Objectives
Many airport operators have challenges when transitioning asset information from the planning, design, and construction stages to the operations and maintenance (O&M) stage. These challenges include issues with timeliness, conformity, completeness, and accuracy. Such issues may lead to poorly informed O&M planning decisions, resulting in significant financial and functional impacts on O&M departments. Although there are a number of technology-based platforms to assist in the efficient and accurate transfer of asset data (e.g., geographic information systems, CMMSs, and building information modeling), many airports need guidelines for mapping the transition process and involving key departments and stakeholders through the whole life of an asset, from procurement and commissioning to daily operation and maintenance through decommissioning and disposal.
The objective of this research was to produce a guide that would assist airports in developing and maintaining an asset information handover process for accepting new and replacement physical assets used by key airport stakeholders. Asset information may include but is not limited to electronic data, drawings, and O&M information. The guide should address and/or include, at a minimum:
- Recommended assets and supporting data that airports should consider tracking.
- Identifying and coordinating with users and providers of the asset information.
- Best practices for managing and tracking the asset information handover process.
- Case studies that span a range of airport sizes, types, and experiences.
- A discussion, written for airport leaders, which addresses the implementation of the asset handover process including appropriate staff support.
Conclusions
To be successful, airports must consider how best to manage the built environment—those constructed assets that represent the terminal and cargo buildings, the airfield, and various components of supporting infrastructure. Asset information handover plays a significant role in an airport’s asset management program. Which assets are important? Which ones are owned by the airport? Are each of the constructed assets critical to the airport’s day-to-day operations and, if so, what information is needed by airport stakeholders to ensure that each asset remains operational?
Business processes should be developed for a functional asset management program and to gain a better understanding of how asset information handover impacts the organization. Design and construction projects develop an enormous volume of data that turns into important information about the built environment. How the airport then obtains, collects, and utilizes this asset data for its decision-making, to inform its capital program investments, and to help make everyday decisions is a crucial aspect of this process. An airport’s
ability to ascertain what asset data is important, and how to obtain accurate and specific data will be key in the development of the business processes requiring the asset information handover deliverables.
Design and construction activities are no longer conducted in pen-and-paper format. Advances in technology have increased the data available to nearly everyone during each phase of design and construction projects. Architecture, engineering, and construction teams operate in a data-driven world, transferring enormous amounts of data to one another quickly and easily. If airport staff are familiar with the new technologies and processes being used by design and construction teams, they can ensure that asset data is accurate and is being appropriately developed and saved. This will positively impact the airport’s asset management program. If staff are unfamiliar with these processes and technologies, it will have a negative effect on the asset management program.
Asset information handover is more than a developed business process. To be successful, airport staff must understand how assets are created, how they operate, what roles assets play or support in airport operations, and how they need to be maintained to ensure their operation. Successful asset management programs require an airport not only to identify its needs but also to understand what the airport “owns” in the way of the built environment. Then, the airport must develop standards, business processes, and asset management program requirements that will guide the management and maintenance of its constructed assets.
It is important to have staff members designated to support asset management business processes. These individuals should understand the assets that are being created by any design and construction project and what every stakeholder group within the airport needs to know to operate the asset successfully.
Asset information handover is not the same for every airport. Some airports are equipped with software tools that support uploading asset data almost seamlessly while other airports still manage a maintenance program on paper. Some airports are responsible for only a few of the constructed assets that comprise the airport while a consortium might manage designated others. However, the processes for acquiring or developing newly constructed assets are pretty much the same. Airports need to know what they own, what they are responsible for and manage, and, of course, what assets need to be maintained for the airport to operate successfully.
Once an airport elects to embrace any level of “asset management,” it can determine what assets are critical, who is responsible for what, and which airport staff group will be assigned responsibility for overall program success. Examples of the flow of the asset information handover business process, an asset management policy, and suggested project closeout text have been provided as part of this guide to help support asset information handover. An airport should consider what it needs and wants to know about the various assets comprising the built environment. From that starting point, the airport can begin to develop the documented process and the staff to help ensure that the asset information provided upon project closeout is as accurate and comprehensive as possible.
The determination of which assets are important might depend on airport size and overall operation. Not every constructed asset is as important to a smaller airport as it might be to its largest neighbor. There is little sense in asking for data that is not needed by any airport stakeholder. Collecting data is costly and maintaining that data—ensuring it stays accurate and therefore useful—also has a cost. Therefore, when it comes to requesting and collecting asset data, airports should not request more data than they can manage.
Several chapters of this guide discuss asset information handover as a business process; however, asset information handover should also become a part of an airport’s internal culture—something that staff simply “do” because it is what should be done. Numerous constructed asset-related policies can be developed and standards, specifications, project closeout language, and other internal processes can be documented and published, but none of it will be of value if it is never adhered to or enforced by staff. The ability of an airport to ensure it receives, through adequate project closeout procedures, requested asset data will impact the airport’s overall success.
Throughout the discussions with participants in case studies conducted for this research, no one story of success or failure in asset information handover became apparent. What was seemingly working for one airport had been considered by others and abandoned. Consistent throughout though was an emphasis on asset information handover from upper or executive-level management. If there is support from and significant attention provided by the top levels within an airport organization, there is a much greater level of asset information handover and asset management program success. If the “C-suite” does not have any level of interest, overall success is unlikely.
