This unique competency-based graduate credential is being offered for the first time in Canada through a partnership between BCIT’s Centre for Infrastructure Management (CIM), Australia’s Chifley Business School (CBS) and the GHD Business School. Developed and delivered in cooperation with the business school of the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA), the course has been designed ‘by industry-for industry’ and has been built on the foundations of the APESMA MBA, which, after fifteen years, is still the largest distance-learning MBA in Australia (by number of students).
Offered at CBS as a stand-alone graduate credential, it also articulates as 4.0 units of CBS’s 12.0 unit distance MBA. Students who successfully complete this offering at BCIT will receive an Australian qualification and the opportunity to ladder into CBS’s MBA program. In addition, the credential is intended to form approximately one-third of the credits towards a new graduate credential in Infrastructure Management currently under development by the CIM at BCIT.
Course Overview >>
Course Background >>
Credential and Credits >>
Who Should attend >>
Course Logistics >>
Course Syllabus >>
Course Overview
Designed to provide participants with the skills and knowledge to deliver successful and cost-effective asset management in their work environments, the Vocational Graduate Certificate in Physical Asset Management draws on over 30 years experience applying asset management in hundreds of organisations throughout the world. Course development has been overseen by a steering committee of industry based asset managers, industry associations and professional trainers. Course material maps to the contents of the International Infrastructure Management Manual and the UK PAS55 Asset Management Specification, so participants can be assured that the course is relevant to their needs. The course structure teaches the participant how to progressively plan and implement asset management in their workplace and then submit their work as assessment tasks. In addition to participant's gaining academic credits, employers gain the benefit of an asset management plan.
Completing any part-time study in conjunction with a full time job and other commitments can be very demanding. The course has therefore been designed so participants can integrate learning and assessment tasks into their work program. Participants have chosen assets in their workplace and applied course content to the development of asset management plans for assets as diverse as railway locomotives, road networks, sewage pump stations, water pipelines, bridges, road signage, street lighting, buildings, mobile and fixed mining equipment, and airport fire trucks.
Developing and implementing asset management plans takes time, so while the course is delivered over a short time frame, participants will be expected to choose an asset and complete some coursework prior to actual attendance. Final completion of all required self-paced learning and assessment activities may take up to an additional six months. In order to assist participants over this time period, we have developed an e-forum where participants can post requests for advice and receive one-to-one remote mentoring.
Course Background
The course is based on proven training programs run for over four years for the United States EPA, and within the online AMPLE eLearning environment used by the US Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) and AWWA Research Foundation. In order to provide participants with the widest possible understanding of the application of asset management, the course draws on appropriate methodologies and knowledge that has been applied in organisations as diverse as:
Credential and Credits
Graduates will receive a Vocational Graduate Certificate in Physical Asset Management through the GHD Business School, a Registered Training Organisation operating under the Australian Quality Training Framework and the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training. Graduates will also be eligible for 4 units of credit (out of 12 total units) towards the APESMA MBA, one of the largest and most successful distance learning MBA programs in Australia. In addition, the Graduate Certificate will provide approximately 1/3 of the credits towards an advanced specialty certificate in Infrastructure Management, currently under development.
Chifley Business School is an initiative of The Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia (APESMA). For two decades, Chifley Business School has prided itself in delivering quality education for professionals across all levels, from postgraduate programs to short courses and nationally accredited certificate and diploma programs.
Who Should Attend?
The Vocational Graduate Certificate in Physical Asset Management course is targeted at participants with several years' experience since graduation and who are involved in life cycle asset management, or who are experienced asset managers and want recognition of the knowledge and skills they have developed, or wish to pursue an MBA with a more technical asset management focus. The course also provides an opportunity for all engineers, accountants, economists and commercial managers to gain the appreciation of asset management necessary for their roles.
Logistics
The course has been designed to accommodate registrants who cannot take consecutive weeks off work. Material will be delivered in 2x three day sessions with 4 work days in between sessions. It is anticipated that classroom sessions will be held at our downtown Vancouver campus.
Prior to the Classroom Sessions
Registrants will receive pre-classroom reading material and will be asked to begin to focus on the preparation of 2x five minute presentations/workshops on Levels of Service and Risk Analysis to be presented during the latter 3 days. Participants will need to select an asset or asset group to focus on in preparation for this assignment.
Past participants have chosen a variety of assets such as: a mining shovel undergoing refurbishment (with a 30 tonne bucket); a waste mining ore recycling plant; small water pipe network; a water storage reservoir; street signs (as an asset group); street lighting; traffic lights (as an asset group); roadside furniture; a diesel locomotive fleet; water and waste water pumping stations; small treatment plants; small town electrical network; bridges (of all different materials); major road links; and drainage culverts.
Some have had to narrow their asset choice after realising the original choice was too complex, but that is fine. We tell people that the asset breakdown/hierarchy should only extend to the same size as the workshop example (around fifty sub-assets/MMI* components), though one used a 300 traffic light ‘group’ and another used a 2000km road network (broken into five major asset classes). [*MMI = Maintenance Managed Item]
Between Classroom Sessions
Participants may utilize this time to prepare 2x five minute presentations to be presented to the group on their return. The recent trend appears to be powerpoint presentations, but this is not mandatory. Those with extra time often choose to work on portions of their major competency project (see below) as well.
Major Competency Project
Participants will have up to 16 weeks to submit complete documentation.
The major competency project is the production of an asset management plan for an asset or asset group, and, ideally, will be based on assets owned, operated, or maintained by the participant's employer. The project is made up of a coherent series of interconnected and progressive tasks that can be submitted progressively. Many participants integrate the major project with their daily work by getting their employer to agree that preparation and implementation of asset management of the asset(s) concerned is part of the individual’s responsibilities – they can therefore distribute some of the workload into work time and some in home time – by negotiation.
Past participants have taken up to 200 hours to complete the major competency assignment, although many take considerably less due to their existing technical competence.
If participants work for the same employer they are most welcome to team up – we have had great success in pairings of engineers with finance managers, administrators with technical types, etc.
E-forum and Mentoring
An e-forum and mentoring system will be set up subsequent to the classroom delivery for assistance in preparing the major competency project. To date there has not been any necessity to set limits on post-classroom mentoring. The maximum requirements by any group/individual have been in the order of 4-5 hours, but the majority of participants require only several short sessions.
Asset Management overview
Definition of physical assets, the definition, history and need for asset management, including overviews of: the deliverables; core steps, techniques, processes and practices; business integration; the concept of confidence levels in asset management decision making and outputs.
What is the state of my assets?
The need for asset information, guiding principles and smart data collection, structuring knowledge and data, the asset register, asset hierarchy structures, data standards and inventory, data integrity and verification, asset condition, condition assessment protocols, remaining and effective/useful physical life, life cycle cost, full economic cost, finite verses indefinite life assets, asset value and depreciation, economic life.
What is my required level of service?
Customer and other stakeholder demand for services, levels of service, regulatory requirements, the strategic planning framework, alignment of operations and maintenance and capital tactics with organisational strategies, balanced scorecards, sustainable service delivery, performance based asset management, performance metrics, failure modes, predicting future trends, level of service planning, performance and utilisation.
Which assets are critical to sustainable business performance?
Risk management, reliability failure, establishing the primary failure mode, failure analysis, cause and effect, root cause, FMECA, probability of failure, role of asset age and condition, establishing the consequence of failure, asset criticality, redundancy, business risk exposure.
What are my minimum LCC*, CIP* and O&M* strategies?
The Asset decision framework, optimised renewal, managing asset consumption, alternative treatment options, decision tree approach, life cycle cost analysis, integrated intervention and full life cycle cost optimisation, maintenance, CMMS, work orders, KPI’s, linking maintenance strategies to failure process, reliability centred maintenance, reliability driven asset management, determining maintenance tactics, predictive maintenance, condition based maintenance, renewal strategy, elements of a capital improvement program (CIP), CIP validation, asset management based CIP decision model, confidence level rating of CIP processes, business risk exposure. * LCC — Life Cycle Costing, CIP — Capital Improvement Plan, O&M — Operations and Maintenance
What is my long-term asset expenditure profile?
Factors in development of long-term funding strategies: operations and maintenance, renewals accounting, annuities, discount rates, life cycle costing with renewal annuities, residual risk exposure. Integration with the Total Asset Management Plan: choosing an appropriate level of sophistication, cost effectiveness, key result areas, relationship to asset knowledge, standards and levels of service, demand, customer review/consultation, business sustainability, business goal linkages.
How do I draw it all together? The Asset Management Plan.
Total Asset Management Plans: philosophy and objectives, linkages to Corporate Business Plans, key elements, production strategy, format and content, implementation and production efficiencies, reviewing, how to write and communication strategies.
Quality Frameworks and developing an Asset Management Improvement Plan
What is a quality framework? Asset management quality frameworks. Concept and application of gap analysis: establishing appropriate practice benchmarks, linking to business priorities, business confidence levels, life cycle processes and practices, data and knowledge, organisational issues, people issues, commercial tactics.
How do I successfully deploy an Asset Management program?
Developing an improvement program, implementation planning, organisational context analysis, engagement of people, commercial tactics, incorporating, creating or acquiring assets, operations management, works and resource management. Cultural change and Asset Management implementation.
Managing Data and Knowledge
Enterprise Asset Management System (EAMS) components, needs analysis, data standards, data flows, roles and responsibilities, system design and integration, tool integration, implementation.
Last updated: 2010 March 25
