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Data-Driven Risk-Driven Enterprise Asset Management (DREAM) Asset Management Asset Management Assetmanagement DREAM Maintenance

Data-Driven Risk-Driven Enterprise Asset Management (DREAM)

The management and maintenance of physical assets should preferably be sustainable and at a minimal cost. The greater challenge is to find an optimal balance between asset performance, risks and costs. If you cut back on maintenance costs, the performance will decrease in the long term, and the risks will increase. If you accept fewer risks, you will have to lower the performance requirements or incur more costs. As an asset manager, how do you make the right decisions that enable you to plan the most efficient maintenance measures and avoid unexpected hindrances? Our new division Iv-Assetmanagement can help with this. Take a peek behind the scenes of Iv’s latest division and the DREAM methodology.

Asset management is nothing new

Director of Iv-Assetmanagement Arno Willems: “Firstly, asset management is nothing new. Even the application of strategic asset management has been under development for at least half a century. The same applies to Iv-Groep because we’ve been advising for decades on managing and maintaining our client’s assets, implicitly seeking an optimum balance in the triangle of performance, risks and costs. However, what is new, is that we can now measure the performance of assets in real-time and, based on this, we can accurately estimate the risks and schedule the necessary maintenance on time.

This so-called fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0 or smart industry, was the main reason for establishing Iv-Assetmanagement. Iv provided ‘traditional’ management and maintenance advice for many years, mainly in the infrastructure sector. We are now bundling the four essential disciplines (measuring & monitoring, data science, domain knowledge and strategic asset management) to apply Industry 4.0 via one central body; Iv-Assetmanagement.

Many assets are approaching the end of their useful life.

The most significant added value for clients is that Iv-Assetmanagement has specialist knowledge of measurement technologies, risk analysis and asset management, and in-depth knowledge of the actual structures and installations. Arno: “As a result, we are better positioned than any other company to translate the data from, among other things, sensor measurements into information about the (failure) behaviour of the assets.”

As assets age, this information becomes increasingly important. Many assets – from bridges, roads and locks to industrial installations, container cranes, offshore platforms and vessels – are approaching the end of their useful life. So how should you maintain assets, and when should you intervene? Especially in times when budgets are under increasing pressure and ‘performing maintenance’ is not a popular decision from a political point of view as it costs a lot of money, and the benefit is often not immediately visible. To that end, performing maintenance too soon is undesirable, but leaving it too late can be much worse.
 

Imagine: if you accept more risks, what is the effect?

Infinite maintenance horizon
Arno: “Years ago, we advised the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) on the risk-based maintenance of dikes, dams, dunes and floating marks, so-called ‘hydraulic line objects’. Initially, we developed a method that enabled us to estimate the risks for the coming 6-year maintenance period. Based on that, we optimised the maintenance for that relatively short period. However, this approach is not optimal for the lifespan of the assets and can still lead to wrong choices or even failing assets. Moreover, the DirectorateGeneral for Public Works and Water Management proved insufficiently able to quantify the effect of turning the dials on performance, risks and costs. We, therefore, devised a risk-based method to examine and assess assets much further into the future than six years, with an infinite maintenance horizon”, he explains. “This enables us to optimise maintenance over the assets’ entire lifespan with regard to the triangle mentioned earlier.”

Multi-year maintenance planning
Kees-Willem Markus is a RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) and Asset Management Senior Consultant. He further developed the methodology with Arno for the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management under the name DREAM. DREAM stands for Data-Driven Risk-Driven Enterprise Asset Management. Kees-Willem explains: “DREAM is a method that cleverly combines the possible failure behaviour of structures, inspection and/or measurement results and maintenance advice with the help of an uncertainty analysis into a multi-year maintenance plan. As a result, the maintenance of assets and the required budget is predicted for the coming years, without unexpected hindrances resulting from malfunctions, necessary (unplanned) maintenance or structural failure.”

This method has been worked on for years. The basis of this development is the risk matrix that was used in the past. “We played around with that”, continues Kees-Willem. “Imagine: if you accept more risks, what is the effect? DREAM originated from the idea that we increasingly collect more and better data and perform better and more complete risk analyses.

Moreover, the DREAM method has been designed and developed in such a way that it also helps clients who have less affinity with figures. The long-term risk is indicated via colours (green, orange, red) for a range of areas and various maintenance and failure scenarios. This way, decision making can be substantiated and easily optimised for various maintenance budgets.

We want to substantiate these estimates better with data and representative failure curves

In full development
Kees-Willem: “It is very widely applicable. We can provide insight into the inspection requirement with several rules from the maintenance. It works well, but at the same time, it is still in development as far as we’re concerned. In an ideal scenario, we would attach some sensors to a bridge and measure the critical points, after which a risk profile containing maintenance advice would be produced automatically. This is our dot on the horizon, but we are not there yet.” Arno endorses this improvement. “For ourselves and the client, we want to substantiate these estimates better with data and representative failure curves, for example, to bring us closer to 100% predictable maintenance. This is still the biggest challenge.

Incidentally, it is not the case that DREAM will mean that people are no longer involved; on the contrary: visual inspections are crucial in supporting the data. Kees-Willem: “Also, because measures are not generic. Not every crack is the same, and concrete cracks, for example, will always need to be sealed.”

A broad knowledge, not only in asset management but also of the different types of assets, is essential to deliver tailor-made solutions. According to Arno, this is the strength of Iv-Groep’s new division. “We are capable of collecting data with all types of monitoring technology we have, and via all our divisions, we have an exceptional understanding of interpreting deviating results. Our expertise and experience in risk analysis and asset management make for an excellent combination.” •

Would you like to know more about DREAM? Arno and Kees-Willem will be pleased to tell you more. Contact him via 088 943 8332 or send them an email.