Consultant's Corner: Knowledge Management And Asset Management

By Kurt Vause, PE, Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility Engineering Division Director and Sharon Jean-Baptiste, PE, CH2M Senior Project Manager

Are you grappling with managing your organization’s knowledge and people resources to not only ensure ongoing and sustained operations but also make critical business decisions? Are you currently using a myriad of asset management tools to assist you in managing your organization’s physical assets yet knowing there is the capability to further leverage data into business knowledge? Have you been thinking about how much more effective you and your teams would be if various tools and processes that capture both organizational knowledge and physical asset management information could be integrated as a business platform?

If you said yes to any of these questions, then you are like many utility managers who are challenged to make better, more strategic decisions about operations, capital planning, resources, and future enterprise vitality.

This year, during the American Water Works Association (AWWA)/Water Environment Federation (WEF) Utility Management Conference in Austin, TX, the AWWA Knowledge Management Subcommittee of the Workforce Strategies Committee and the AWWA Asset Management Committee partnered to present combined utility experience and case studies, illustrating the integration of knowledge management and asset management practices to support business decisions. This interactive workshop, which provided an opportunity to share leading practices and lessons learned, was delivered to utility managers from across the United States and Canada.

The key outcome of the workshop was to demonstrate the business value of treating knowledge as an asset and discuss approaches for leveraging business and technical knowledge to make informed investment decisions, as part of a comprehensive asset management program. Leading the workshop, we set the stage by providing an overview of Asset Management and Knowledge Management concepts — explaining how both apply within an organization.

Several utility case studies were shared with the audience, including:

• Application of the Effective Utility Management (EUM) approach and use of benchmarking tools at the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority to conduct a gap analysis on knowledge management systems. 
• How the communities of Englewood-Littleton in Colorado leveraged data and knowledge from its Information Management Systems, such as InfoNet, Infor, and GIS to better understand and proactively pursue long-term operations and management needs of its asset classes.
• The ongoing journey of the joint utility of the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati and Greater Cincinnati Water Works in strategically identifying, developing, or hiring people with the skills and competencies necessary to run a utility of the future and plan for succession.
• How Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility, while undergoing a rapid, complete replacement of key staff, utilized a risk-based asset and knowledge management approach to continue to meet its core mission.

Complimenting these case studies were interactive group exercises that allowed attendees to discuss their experiences around EUM maturity, Information System tools, succession planning approaches and best practices for identifying and addressing risks to sustained business and operations.

Key takeaways from the workshop included:

• Knowledge retention is emerging as a key business driver for utilities. This requires utilities to take stock of the organization’s current accomplishments and capabilities around comprehensive asset and business management;
• Based on the assessment of risk to the organization, selecting, prioritizing and focusing on business practices to develop or improve operations effectiveness; and
• Leveraging the network of other utility organizations to learn and advance your program — you are not alone!

Since 1998, Mr. Vause has been Engineering Division Director of Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility, responsible for AWWU’s capital construction program, its Grants & Loans section, and the utility’s Strategic Asset Services and Planning sections. Mr. Vause currently serves on AWWA’s Water Utility Council, presently serving as the Regulatory Subcommittee chair.  In addition, he is a member of AWWA’s Asset Management Committee. He also served on the 2012 International Water Association - Water Supply Association of Australia Asset Management Best Practices Benchmarking Project Steering Committee. He is co-founder of StreamlineAM, LLC, an Alaskan-based consulting service dedicated to utility management, asset management, and engineering for the water sector.

Sharon Jean-Baptiste is an experienced Project Manager at CH2M, with more than 16 years of experience delivering engineering and utility management solutions for municipal and Federal clients in the water, wastewater and stormwater sectors. Her expertise includes integrated watershed and wet weather planning, engineering and management of infrastructure systems, asset management, and management consulting. Sharon is involved in several technical organizations and currently serves as the chairperson of the Knowledge Management subcommittee of AWWA’s Workforce Strategies Committee.  She has led various initiatives around management of assets — people, tools and infrastructure.