IAM Annual Conference 2021 Day two National Highway Asset Management Strategy in India Our first keynote of the day came from Rahul Gupta, Chief Engineer at the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) at the Government of India. With more than 20 years of experience in the road transport sector, Gupta was well-placed to outline Indias national highway asset management strategy, a key part of Indias plan to become a developed nation by 2047, the same year it will celebrate a century of independence. As the most populous country in the world with the second-largest road network, roadways are some of Indias most vital assets. Carrying around 40 per cent of total traffic, the current national highways constitute only 2.29 per cent of Indias road network and carry 65 per cent of the countrys total freight. The key to managing this vast network of roadways, bridges and tunnels, Gupta said, is to adopt a data-driven approach, which provides a systemic process of maintaining, operating and upgrading these physical assets. So why asset management? The main benefits of adopting an asset management approach, as Gupta sees it, are to preserve the existing network of 145,155 km of roadways, ensure the best value for money, and to address climate change and protect scarce natural resources. To achieve these benefits, the following objectives have been set: Assure comfort, convenience, reliability and safety Preserve existing investments in infrastructure Guarantee a synergy of aesthetics and environmental compatibility Use asset management tools and techniques to optimise decision-making. But with such ambitious objectives come equally strong challenges: the current state of the network must be accurately assessed; the growing expectations of the public must be met amid increasing scrutiny and media attention; and an increasing demand for initiatives is outstripping public funding, creating tight budgetary constraints. To combat these challenges, MoRTH has developed the road asset management system software (RAMS) to manage its assets with minimum effort to ensure high availability, lower operation cost and longer shelf life. RAMS contains six core activities: data collection; performance modelling; development of alternatives; decision-making and programme development; implementation; and monitoring. Gupta concluded his keynote by giving us a look at the road ahead (no pun intended!). MoRTH will work towards standardising the systems and processes for ensuring safe and competitive delivery and mandating road-user satisfaction surveys to provide performance indicators. Additionally, MoRTH is looking to adopt global best practices to provide an asset management strategy that minimises investment, maximises cost efficiency and reduces losses for users. He emphasised that there are immense opportunities available to India, now and in the future, and that it is well on the way to achieving its goals for 2047. Author bio Owen Plant is a Consultant at BMT working within its Asset Performance Services department, with a background in mechanical engineering. Since starting at BMT, he has been primarily involved in asset management projects within the defence industry. Plant is also a member of the UK NxtGen Committee, acting in the committee support role. Rahul Gupta opened day two with a look at Indias National Highway Asset Management Strategy Asset management global insights and trending issues 90+ s r e k a spe Farshad Ibrahimi considered global trends for asset management, and the challenges and opportunities that these bring Farshad Ibrahimi, Managing Director of Quantum Leap Advisory, took us through the current state, trends and challenges facing asset management during his presentation on global insights and trending issues. In line with the theme of the conference, he stated that the focus of asset management was, at its core, about the delivery of outcomes, aided by physical and nonphysical assets, and that the role of non-physical assets cannot be overstated. Indeed, processes, strategies and data should be subjected to the same amount of diligence as physical assets. He went on to emphasise that business objectives dont need to be, and should not be, purely financial. In a lot of cases, the more relevant business objectives are those relating to the availability or reliability of services, as at the end of the day, were delivering services for the community, requiring a shift in focus of asset management from an inward view, as a business tool, to an outward focus, delivering services and improving way of life. He began his coverage of global trends by focusing on the positive: the global support and recognition of asset management, supplemented with institutional and organisational support, the standardisation of practices and international sharing of key messages, and the systematic approach to digitally transform and enhance resilience. However, there are challenges that need to be addressed, the greatest of which is the asset management funding gap, between available funds and the required funds to cover renewals and replacements to ensure delivery of service. This gap has two major elements. The first is that the quality of services will degrade if the gap cannot be closed; the second is that there are things that we as AM practitioners do that contribute to this gap, regarding the speed of reaction to replacing assets and understanding asset health. Another major challenge being faced is around benefits realisation. There is a lack of systemic approaches and tools that record and report the benefits of asset management, and little evidence on how to provide benefits accounting for asset management, making it difficult to attribute any success to asset management initiatives. These challenges also present an opportunity. Currently, there are thousands of scientists and engineers joining the workforce every year with no education or training in the field of asset management. Additionally, the majority of asset owners do not have competency frameworks or career pathways in place for their asset management practitioners. The key to closing this competency gap is therefore to deliver an education reform that provides formal asset management training for these career paths. Ibrahimi concluded that we should celebrate the progress that has been made and the support that is given by institutions. However, we should not forget the fundamentals and areas where improvements can be made: closing the funding gap, closing the competency gap, and providing strong benefit accounting of asset management. Transport and biodiversity: delivering long-term outcomes to people and the planet Our second keynote was hosted by Savina Carluccio, Executive Director at International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI), who introduced us to four expert panellists: Joseph Price, Policy Specialist at United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP); Yannick Autret from the Research and Innovation Department at the Ministry of Ecological Transition in the French Government; Pinar Yilmazer, Senior Programme Adviser at the International Union of Railways; and Joseph Schmidt, a Nature Based Solutions Engineer at Conservation International. The panel topics ranging from the UNEP international good practice principles for sustainable infrastructure to sustainable habitat management as it relates to the rail sector. As Price explained: Infrastructure directly or indirectly influences 90 per cent of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets and cuts across all 17 of the individual SDGs. And so the case study presented by Schmidt regarding a grey-green coastal highway along Colombias largest marsh ecosystem was particularly compelling. The panel discussed sustainability and biodiversity in transport NxtGen: journey to asset management career NxtGen representatives from around the world share the different routes they took into the asset management profession Our international NxtGen community was represented by Stephen Morgan and Charlotte Connelly from the UK Chapter, Katterinne Flemming from the US Chapter, Eric Goforth for the Canada Chapter, Wim Timmerman from the Netherlands Chapter, and Anna Haddick from the Germany Chapter, to discuss their journey with asset management. The aim of the panel was to give practical applications of what a career within asset management looks like as a young professional from a wide range of global perspectives. Every member of the panel found their way to asset management via a different route, some through academic qualifications, such as a PHD, and others after a career in the navy! One point raised by multiple panel members was that asset management is a field that practitioners often stumble upon by chance without any exposure through formal education, gaining their knowledge through practical experience. This is especially prevalent in countries without a translated copy of the IAM Anatomy, and links back to the previous Global Insights presentation about the competency gap. Am I really better off? Our third and final keynote of the day was presented by Steve Wyton, Manager of Asset Management Planning for the City of Calgary. Echoing the Global Insights talk on benefit accounting, Wyton described how, as a municipality, the City of Calgary struggles to demonstrate that citizens, community groups and private businesses are better off because of its actions. Wyton feels we, as asset management practitioners, need to move beyond a mechanical, quantifiable approach to managing our assets, stop talking about the cost and ensuring that CapEx and OpEx is driven by data, and towards a strategic and holistic way of thinking about how the services provided ensure people are better off with those services, rather than focusing on the assets themselves. He also explained how some assets dont need to provide a service to make life better, they can simply make it better by existing, such as a piece of art. In short, value is a deeply personal thing, the definition of which differs fundamentally from any one individual to another. An example he gave of this value discrepancy is the War of Hans Island, an island between the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland and Elsmere Island in Canada. Situated almost exactly halfway between each country, this barren rock was disputed territory because of its strategic interest for allowing fishing and water access. From 1983, each country began a friendly rivalry to disembark on the island, lower the other countrys flag, raise their own and leave a parting gift of Canadian whisky or Danish schnapps. This ended in 2022, where it was decided to split the island in half, with Canada claiming the western half and Denmark the eastern part, as a show of solidarity as NATO member nations. In his parting thoughts, Wyton encouraged us to think beyond our individual organisations and apply social benefit models that align with customer levels of service beyond corporate objectives, with asset management objectives that span multiple organisations. The sum of the parts does not make a strategic whole. When these things happen, Ill feel a lot more comfortable and perhaps be able to declare that Im better off. Six keynote sessions Steve Wyton rounded off the day with a look at value Closing Ursula Bryan, IAM CEO, closed the conference by thanking all the speakers and moderators, technicians and back-office staff, for their efforts and hard work over the two days. Without you, we dont have a conference, she said. Did you miss the conference? Members can still access on-demand services to catch up on all the above sessions.