City of Melton revamps asset management

The City of Melton in Victoria has overhauled its approach to asset management in collaboration with cloud-based strategic asset management solutions provider Assetic.

Through the collaboration, the council has already achieved savings of more than $2.5 million, and the project has immediate potential to save up to $4 million per year.

The City of Melton manages a portfolio of more than $2.7 billion in infrastructure assets, with a planned annual increase of $220 million due to the development of new buildings.

Due to the growing portfolio, the council came to understand that its current approach of using a budget to oversee asset planning and funding levels was likely to cause a growing asset backlog, threatening the deterioration of new assets so they no longer met community expectations.

Assetic was originally selected to deliver lifecycle modelling and develop a comprehensive 10-year asset management plan, according to City of Melton Manager for Engineering Services Sam Romaszko.

“The council set out on a journey to update its asset management plans, from a lengthy document that sat on the shelf to an enhanced, streamlined document that clearly outlined the council’s long-term strategic asset management,” he said.

“The City of Melton partnered with Assetic to manage internal stakeholder workshops, to gain a better understanding of the council’s needs and to provide advice to help the council move through a sometimes challenging process.”

The project began with a review of the level of service expected by the community. A team of engineers, service managers, finance officers and council subject matter experts then worked with Assetic to develop the council’s asset management plan.

Following implementation, the council began identifying potential financial risk, through which it has identified savings of around $2.5 million per year from its roads portfolio by scheduling interventions based on strategic asset management best practices.

Assetic Senior Manager for Strategic Asset Management Raston Nga said the average asset portfolio degrades at an average of 3–4% per annum.

“By optimising interventions, this consumption rate can be reduced by 0.16%. The City of Melton could realise savings of up to $4 million per annum by applying the analytical models developed through this project and realise higher community satisfaction and service levels as a result,” Nga said.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Sikov