Q&A Series: What Is Strategic Asset Management?

What is strategic asset management? 

Strategic asset management (SAM) is an established approach to asset management for long-term planning for maintenance and operations.  

Strategic asset management is a framework that can be used to understand and visualize asset management needs today and 5, 10 and 20+ years into the future. It is an approach that delivers solid, integrated long-term capital works and financial plans that powerfully demonstrate the consequences of today’s decisions on tomorrow’s infrastructure and facilities. 

Instead of managing assets according to available budgets and guessing at their future needs, it’s a way to leverage condition data to make strategic decisions based on your community’s desired service levels now and into the future. 

What is a strategic asset management framework or plan? 

Strategic asset management is a future-focused lifecycle modeling approach that balances budgets, communities’ services needs and asset condition for sustainable facilities and infrastructure into the future.  

The strategic asset management framework is founded on asset inventory data, answering questions like: 

• What assets do I own? 

• Where are they located? 

• What condition are they in? 

Then, you can build on top of that with tactical asset management to improve overall operations, streamlining pieces like work orders, maximizing uptime and reporting on performance. 

Next, strategic asset management layers in, allowing you to optimize how you’re treating assets and better plan out your budget and capital works activities. 

Strategic asset management gives your organization the answers to important questions like how much funding do you need for specific assets, where you should spend your budget and which assets are likely to fail. 

Industry-specific algorithms help accurately predict the future condition and service state of an asset portfolio and help create powerful visualizations that illustrate how different funding strategies would impact assets and service to inform and align stakeholders across roles. 

This new way to approach managing assets allows you to create a strategic asset management plan based on data which determines the best future for your infrastructure into the 10+ year horizon.

What is strategic asset management software?

These are often powered by condition data from your computerized maintenance management system (or CMMS). 

Capital Predictor^TM Enterprise from Brightly is a strategic asset management tool that empowers your team with community-driven strategies, what-if scenario modeling and reporting tools that turn data into roadmaps and goals into realities. Our strategic asset management software leverages your existing asset data to provide valuable insights within minutes. Our solution helps you accurately predict the state of your full asset portfolio into the future; create robust live data reports and visualizations that tell more compelling data stories to stakeholders, and helps you stay aligned with ISO 55000 best practice. 

How do you implement strategic asset management software? 

At Brightly, we have a proven, 3-step process for software implementation led by our Client Service Center team of experts to guide you each step of the way. Our implementation process involves the steps of planning, onboarding and going live. 

We also offer on-site implementation services to get you up and running as quickly as possible. 

Learn more about our implementation process. 

How do you implement strategic asset management software? 

At Brightly, we have a proven, 3-step process for software implementation led by our Client Service Center team of experts to guide you each step of the way. Our implementation process involves the steps of planning, onboarding and going live. 

We also offer on-site implementation services to get you up and running as quickly as possible. 

Learn more about our implementation process. 

How have other organizations used strategic asset management? 

We have several success stories around strategic asset management, where local governments have saved millions with this approach. 

Check out this specific story to see how it worked for this organization: 

• Rancho California Water District 

Overall, strategic asset management gives you a plan for doing the right work, on the right asset, at the right time, for the right reason. 

Start seeing how strategic asset management could benefit your organization and request a demo for personalized help!