Technical Director and Senior Asset Management Consultant for Aurecon, Francois Joubert, will share his thinking on achieving more with less in terms of water assets at this year’s South African Asset Management Association (SAAMA) Conference, which takes place at the Lord Charles Hotel, Somerset West, Cape Town from 16 to 18 May 2016.

"Diminishing resources, increased demand for services, resistance to rates increases, insufficient funding, rehabilitation costs, repair and/or replacing of aging assets are just some of the challenges water asset managers face. During my presentation, I will share various practical tools and case studies to illustrate real solutions to some of these challenges," says Joubert. 
Maintenance of water systems is a major challenge. Good maintenance practices should be considered a priority, especially during the current economic climate as it could lead to further savings. Through effective operations and maintenance (O&M), which include optimisation of both preventive and reactive actions aimed at preventing equipment failure, the ultimate goal of increasing efficiency, reliability, and safety of all physical assets, could be achieved.

The World Economic Forum's Strategic Infrastructure Initiative, and its Knowledge Series Reports, have been providing a roadmap to steer governments and key stakeholders to comprehensive frameworks and actionable best practices that cover the whole infrastructure life-cycle. Joubert's presentation will share insights into the last volume in this series, which is focused specifically on best practices for operations and maintenance of existing infrastructure assets.

It will also illustrate the ’roadmap’ to success factors in water asset management by discussing the framework as well as lessons learned from several real-life examples and case studies from various South African water services providers.

"Managers responsible for asset management sometimes feel overwhelmed by these challenges", Joubert added.

In his view, there is an increasing demand for asset managers to work with all other stakeholders to ensure asset management is not administered in isolation, but rather as part of an integrated business management model. The World Economic Forum urges asset managers to embrace the following aspects of best practice:

• Increasing the utility of infrastructure, by maximising asset utilisation and enhancing the quality for users
• Decreasing the total cost of infrastructure, by reducing O&M costs and mitigating environmental and social externalities
• Increasing infrastructure’s value over its lifetime, by extending asset lifetime and reinvesting from the perspective of a whole life cycle

"We need to alter the current thinking that ‘more with more’ will deliver results.  Asset managers stretch themselves to fit all the demands of their daily responsibilities and they sometimes get despondent because they are not achieving more results by putting in more effort. What is needed is a focused approach and innovative thinking in order to achieve more results.

"There are many success stories of South African organisations and individuals that have achieved more with less. The SAAMA conference is an ideal opportunity for all role players in the industry to come and listen, observe and adapt the learning points to their own daily working lives in order to achieve more with less during these challenging, but exciting times," Joubert concluded. 

To register, visit: http://www.saamaconference.org.za