FHWA guidance for asset management
Infrastructure asset management is the administration of physical assets to achieve desired objectives. For a State DOT, the surface infrastructure it is responsible for includes pavement, bridge, and ancillary assets such as traffic structures and stormwater facilities.
The foundation of Federal Highway Administration's guidance for asset management is an asset performance-based investment strategy for the long-term, cost-effective maintenance, preservation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction of the asset. The strategy aims to enhance asset value, reduce agency risk, renew asset condition, and reduce asset lifecycle cost while providing levels of service needed to meet mobility, safety, condition, and environmental objectives.
At the heart of the performance-based approach is the monitoring of impact on asset performance of activities across all departmental processes. By identifying and strengthening activities that lead to improvements in high-priority areas, a DOT is more likely to accomplish its goals and objectives.
Documents and asset management
Activities for each of the phases of an asset lifecycle generate documents. Planning and design initiatives generate engineering plans and specifications; construction activities generate daily progress records; operations and maintenance activities generate asset usage and condition assessment data. Much of what is generated is paper based, with some systems writing directly to a database.
As the use of sensors grows to monitor asset performance and condition, the volume of documents and electronic data will grow exponentially.
Connected documents
Documents that are automatically related to asset processes (operations and maintenance) and activities are monitored, are not yet the norm.
Paper based documents contain vital data and the effort to relate them is often considered too cumbersome and expensive.
AI tools now exist to connect even paper based documents to assets.