National Academies Press: OpenBook

Analytical Tools for Asset Management (2005)

Chapter: Section 7 - Recommended Future Initiatives

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Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - Recommended Future Initiatives." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2005. Analytical Tools for Asset Management. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13851.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - Recommended Future Initiatives." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2005. Analytical Tools for Asset Management. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13851.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - Recommended Future Initiatives." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2005. Analytical Tools for Asset Management. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13851.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - Recommended Future Initiatives." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2005. Analytical Tools for Asset Management. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13851.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 7 - Recommended Future Initiatives." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2005. Analytical Tools for Asset Management. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13851.
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55 SECTION 7 RECOMMENDED FUTURE INITIATIVES 7.1 OVERVIEW Both of the tools that have been developed under this proj- ect can be immediately useful to transportation agencies and, in most cases, can be implemented using internal agency staff resources. However, several future initiatives are recom- mended to improve the tools over time and help agencies make effective use of the tools. In addition to recommending future initiatives, this section summarizes the gaps in analytical tools for asset management that were identified as part of this project but that did not make the short list of tools to be developed. This summary is intended to be used as a resource by the asset management community as it develops future research agendas with respect to analytical tools. The section is organized as follows: • Improvements to AssetManager NT; • Improvements to AssetManager PT; • Implementation Support for the AssetManager Tools; and • Remaining Gaps in Analytical Tools for Asset Man- agement. 7.2 IMPROVEMENTS TO ASSETMANAGER NT Several potential improvements to AssetManager NT are recorded here for future consideration. Some of these changes were identified during the field testing process but could not be implemented under the existing project resources; others were identified by the research team. Before these improvements are pursued, an initial shake-out period, during which user feed- back is gathered, is recommended for the existing tool. Hierarchies of Network and Geographic Categories The current tool supports only a single set of geographic cat- egories and a single set of network categories. This improve- ment would provide multiple levels of hierarchy, to allow a lower level (e.g., cities) to be rolled up into higher-level cat- egories (e.g., counties and regions). Option to Limit “What-If” to Program “Out” Years This improvement creates an option for an initial fixed budget period to be followed by a period of variation in pos- sible budget levels. This option allows the tool to handle the case in which the first few years of a program’s budget are fixed (with programmed projects) and agencies want to test variations only for the last set of years but still see the entire performance trend line. The tool would show the perfor- mance results for the first set of years but exclude their bud- gets from the calculated average annual budget, so the user is specifying the average for the “out” years only. Exportability of Performance Results This improvement would allow the performance informa- tion shown in the views to be exported to a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet would contain the annual budget level, year, asset type, network category, geographic category, and perfor- mance measure and value. Optimization This improvement would add a feature to find the optimal allocation of resources across a set of asset types and geo- graphic and network categories to minimize or maximize a single designated performance measure (e.g., to minimize excess user costs). View Setting Separate from Scenario Setting In the current tool, if a scenario is rerun, any views saved as part of that initial scenario must be recreated. This improve- ment would allow the data for an existing scenario to be updated while previously setup views are retained. This func- tion would need to check that the same basic parameters are in effect in the revised scenario (e.g., asset types, geographic and network categories).

56 Representation of Targets on Views This improvement allows users to specify performance targets and have these target values indicated on the graphs in the budget and allocation views. Normalized Performance Measures This improvement allows users the option to specify min- imum acceptable and target values for each of the perfor- mance indicators, which define a new type of performance measure, called “normalized,” for display in the system. This normalized performance measure transforms an indicator to a 0-1 scale, using a consistent formula based on the minimum acceptable and target values that were specified. The user can view multiple normalized measures and develop a resource allocation strategy that, first, addresses areas where the min- imum acceptable performance values are not being met and, then, addresses targets. Performance Measure Transformations This improvement adds the capability to do simple trans- formations on performance indicators, e.g., dividing the indi- cator by 100. Handling of “Float”-Type Indicators Currently, graph scales are calculated automatically and the user cannot easily interpolate between the values shown on the axes. This improvement would allow users to specify standard intervals to show on graphs for float-type indicators. Cross-Scenario Comparisons This improvement would add the capability to compare results across different NT scenario files. Representation of Work Type AssetManager NT works with the total investment level for an asset; the investment level typically is composed of several types of work on an asset. For example, an invest- ment level for pavement may consist of a mix of expendi- tures for resurfacing, patching, rehabilitation, and full-depth reconstruction work. AssetManager NT does not currently support decision-making about the best mix of work for a given asset type because the assumption was made in this project that such decisions are best left to individual asset management systems. Users can now include output-type performance indicators in their AssetManager NT input files to allow the amount of work by type to be viewed within the system. However, users cannot manipulate the mix of work to see how performance changes (MDT expressed interest in this capability during the field testing exercise). Such a capa- bility is possible to implement but would require develop- ment of a variant of the current tool, with a different input data structure. 7.3 IMPROVEMENTS TO ASSETMANAGER PT Improvements to AssetManager PT are divided into those that could be implemented within the existing tool to enhance its core functionality and those that involve porting the tool from a spreadsheet to a different software platform with an improved user interface, which can more easily be updated over time. The research team recommends that the func- tional enhancements be considered in conjunction with a port of the tool. New Functionality The following functional capabilities would be enhance- ments to those that were implemented in the prototype system: • Analysis of subsets of the project list—This capability would allow the user to define a filter condition for pro- gram analysis (e.g., develop a program scenario for an individual district); • Auto-aggregation for baseline measures and indica- tors—This capability would enable the system to calcu- late aggregate statistics based on entries for individual geographic/network category combinations; • Accommodation of annual budget constraints—This capability would extend the tool to include budget con- straints by year and to allow for project costs to be dis- tributed across several years. The tool currently only allows for a single budget constraint for the entire pro- gram period (which may consist of several years); • Accommodation of “plug” program items—This capa- bility would improve the PT tool’s ability to handle “plug” line items not tied to particular locations; and • Accommodation of multiple sets of budget categories— This capability would allow any given project to be in multiple categories and what-if analysis to be performed using any set of categories. New Platform The decision to implement AssetManager PT initially as a spreadsheet application was a good one: the spreadsheet platform facilitated the process of testing, allowed the tool to evolve substantially throughout the course of the project as new functionalities were suggested, and provided many

57 powerful capabilities (e.g., the ability to easily add new columns of project information). However, the spreadsheet platform also has several disad- vantages. It is far too easy for a user to inadvertently over- write formulas or named ranges that are needed for the tool to operate properly. Data entry can be inconvenient: the user must select all of the proper codes from the pick lists and is responsible for ensuring that the one-to-many relationships between projects and measures and between projects and impacts are properly populated. Scalability also is a concern; the tool’s performance is acceptable with hundreds of project candidates; but, thousands of projects would slow it down. Finally, any upgrades to a spreadsheet-based tool would put the burden on users to transfer their data from the older ver- sions of the tool. For all of these reasons, AssetManager PT should be ported to a more stable platform with database support and improved user interface features that facilitate use of the tool. The research team recommends a Microsoft.NET plat- form, with data stored in a relational database (either an inexpensive database that can be packaged with the appli- cation or an ODBC-compliant format to allow for use with commercially available databases such as Oracle and SQL Server). A high-level list of design requirements for the ported tool includes a definitions menu option, an input data menu option, a work targets menu option, and a what-if analysis screen: • The definitions menu option includes seven dialogues for entering/editing definitions for – System measures, – Network categories, – Geographic categories, – Project types, – Asset types, – Performance measures, and – Budget categories. • The input data menu option includes submenus for proj- ect data and system baseline data: – The project data option allows users to enter projects, their impacts, and their changes in system measures using a master-detail approach. The capability to customize and add new project attributes (currently included in the PT tool) would be included here. – The system baseline data option includes screens for specification of baseline performance and baseline sys- tem measures. Each of these screens would have an import data feature (button or menu option) that allows data to be replaced or refreshed from a standard text- based format (e.g., XML or comma-delimited). • The work targets menu option allows work targets for defined project types and geographic/network category subsets to be set. • The what-if analysis screen implements the functionality of the current program analysis screen, which includes the following capabilities: – Define scenario—this tool would no longer need to be limited to a fixed number of scenarios; – Set a project filtering condition for a scenario; – Set budget levels by budget category for a scenario; – View, sort, and filter a list of candidate projects by any project attribute; – Easily access the detailed project record from the what-if screen; – Select and save project ranking methods for each bud- get category; – Auto-select projects given the budget constraints (using the existing algorithm); – Manually shift projects in and out of budget categories and instantly view the total dollars spent (via “drag- and-drop” or standard tools that allow users to move items between an “available” list and a “selected” list); – Generate all of the existing reports and graphs show- ing impacts of a given program scenario in a more interactive fashion; and – Export all information on project selections and pro- gram impacts to a spreadsheet (or XML format). The research team also recommends that the design pro- cess for this full version of AssetManager PT move toward an integration of the PT and NT tools. The first logical step in this integration would be to define components that can be shared between the PT and NT tools (particularly, configu- ration information, baseline system measures, and perfor- mance values). These shared components can be built into the full version of AssetManager PT. Then, development of the next version of AssetManager NT can include porting it to .NET, implementing the shared components that were incorporated into PT, and updating its look-and-feel to match that of the PT tool. 7.4 IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT FOR THE ASSETMANAGER TOOLS The research team recommends several activities to help agencies use the AssetManager tools effectively. At least a minimum level of user support—to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and address reported issues through workaround suggestions and/or software patches—is criti- cal. Beyond this minimum level of support, some agencies would find external assistance useful for structuring the con- figuration items, identifying data sources, and writing small utility programs to translate across data formats. Addition- ally, the following resource materials would be valuable to support the tool implementation process and to disseminate

practical results that reflect the overall findings of Proj- ect 20-57: • A full tutorial example of how to use both Asset- Manager tools in combination, using work tracking as the linkage; • A set of guidelines for project data structures that sup- port the ability to analyze the aggregate performance of a proposed program of projects—and that, therefore, are consistent with AssetManager PT (These guidelines also should consider integration of actual cost and per- formance data for completed projects, thereby closing the asset management feedback loop.); and • Sample interface tools (analogous to the NT robot tools) that take work candidates from Pontis and HERS/ST (or other systems) and populate portions of the Asset- Manager PT data structure. 7.5 REMAINING GAPS IN ANALYTICAL TOOLS FOR ASSET MANAGEMENT Although this project has made significant progress in addressing gaps in decision support tools for tradeoff analy- sis, many needs identified in the initial interviews still remain. These needs (detailed in Section 4, Table 7, and summarized in the following subsections) are best tackled with efforts on multiple fronts: enhancements to existing tools now in use (e.g., commercial, federal, and customized); develop- ment of new special-purpose tools; and focused data gather- ing and additional research and development at the national level to develop and improve the data and analytical rela- tionships that form the core of credible and useful tools. Asset Preservation Strategies Initial interviews identified the following needs for devel- oping asset preservation strategies: • Improved base of data and models based on actual expe- rience that can be used to quantify life-extension impacts and benefits of routine and preventive maintenance; • Improved analysis and reporting capabilities within indi- vidual asset management systems to better support the ability to – Analyze and present benefits of preventive mainte- nance, – Determine life-cycle cost and condition-related out- comes from different levels of maintenance expendi- tures, and – Demonstrate the value of keeping an asset at a given condition level (for all assets); and • Network-level what-if analysis tool to understand impacts on pavement lives (and corresponding investment needs) of different truck loadings for variations in soil and snowfall conditions. Full Benefits and Costs of Alternative Investments Initial interviews identified the following needs for under- standing the full benefits and costs of alternative investments: • Additional research to adequately represent failure costs in bridge management systems from a risk analysis perspective; • Analytical capabilities to assess freight-related and eco- nomic development impacts and benefits of multimodal investment alternatives; • Improved ability to calculate economic benefit for a pro- gram of projects; • Improved capabilities to analyze the benefits and costs of new interchanges; • Improved capabilities to analyze the benefits and costs of drainage projects; and • Tools that focus on impacts on customers and users rather than facility condition. Resource Allocation Decisions Initial interviews identified the following needs for sup- porting resource allocation decisions: • Development of performance measures that facilitate comparisons across project types; • New tools that allow agencies to incorporate considera- tion of policy initiatives (e.g., passing lanes and upgrades to roads with seasonal weight restrictions) within the condition-based needs assessment method used by man- agement systems; and • Tool or approach to overlay customer satisfaction and priorities with engineering decisions for use in program planning and prioritization. Other Asset Management Initial interviews identified the following needs for expand- ing analysis capabilities beyond pavement and bridges: • Tools for tracking ITS equipment condition, replace- ment needs, and life-cycle costs; • Tools for equipment management, buildings, and other physical assets not covered by standard management systems; and • Tools for transit life-cycle cost analysis. 58

59 Monitoring and Feedback Support Initial interviews identified the following needs for sup- porting monitoring and feedback activities: • Improved tracking of the impacts of maintenance on facility life; • Tools that provide improved accuracy of cost estimates used in needs, project evaluation, prioritization, and pro- gram tradeoffs and that account for typical project ameni- ties and add-ons (possibly using outputs from bid tabu- lations or maintenance management systems). Such tools would use activity-based costing to separate out different project elements (e.g., paving versus safety improvements); • Tool to tie together capital and betterment investments by asset type and location (for GASB-34 requirements); • Cradle-to-grave project tracking systems; and • Query tools to provide easy access to estimated versus actual costs, experience, and lessons learned.

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 545: Analytical Tools for Asset Management examines two tools developed to support tradeoff analysis for transportation asset management. The software tools and the accompanying documentation are designed to help state departments of transportation and other transportation agencies identify, evaluate, and recommend investment decisions for managing the agency’s infrastructure assets.

The software tools associated with NCHRP Report 545 are available in an ISO format. Links to instructions on buring an .ISO CD-ROM and the download site for the .ISO CD-ROM are below.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

Download the NCHRP CRP-CD-57.ISO CD-ROM Image

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