The challenge and opportunity
Sorell has been one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Tasmania for many years. However, Sorell Council’s infrastructure planning and development requirements were exceeding the ability of its internal systems and resources. The municipality faced several challenges, including:
- Low quality or no asset data across all asset classes
- Finance managing asset valuations and depreciation; no relationship to the asset register
- Antiquated manual process for all works activities, with work order data added just twice a week
- No formal asset management plan
- Disparate, siloed systems for different functions (finance, GIS) and asset different classes
- Strong civil and structural design skills, but no formal asset management skills across the team
The council knew things had to change, and committed to improving resourcing, financial transparency and processes across all aspects of asset management.
Integration, real-time data and reporting make the difference
After implementing Brightly’s Assetic — now a part of the Siemens portfolio — Sorell Council was able to accurately track and report all works management accomplishments. The council saw a 132% productivity increase (between May and August 2018, Sorell created 1267 work orders, compared to 546 in the same period of 2017).
The municipality also made strong headway with integration between Assetic and Microsoft Dynamics/Navision (for finance) to accurately reflect, update and manage assets owned and operated. For activity-based costing for maintenance activities, data is tracked and reported through Assetic, Microsoft Dynamics/Navision and other integrated internal systems. This contributes to achieving audit compliance and helps ensure strong service delivery at the most reasonable rates possible.
Other accomplishments include:
- Real-time capture of maintenance activity costing across all asset categories, to component level
- Accurate, reliable loop from customer request to work completion, resulting in informed front-line staff
- KPI reporting for tracking and improvement
- Dedicated, skilled assets and GIS team, with aligned support and management of works management team
Looking to the future
Sorell Council has now shifted its entire asset management approach. They initially engaged Brightly (now called Siemens Asset Management) using the Managed Services model and have been transitioning since, while staff and systems were brought up to speed. Today the council team operates with full autonomy and has implemented Assetic’s cloud software across all activities.