It was a pleasure to attend Highways UK this year. With 8,000 professionals in situ and more than 230 organisations exhibiting, it was a great opportunity for sharing industry perspectives. One of the key focal points for us was the opportunity to deliver our message on bridging the gap between highway asset management and maintenance. That was a core theme of our presentation on the first day of the show, on “The holy grail of asset management”.
This all comes against the backdrop of the recent acquisition of Yotta by Causeway Technologies.
This exciting move allows Causeway to extend its focus to the public sector, helping bridge the gap between contractors and highway authorities. Indeed, our goal is to create a single, truly integrated end-to-end solution that unites and manages the interface between asset management and works execution for both local authorities and their contractors – one that gives both parties a single provider to reduce data silos and improve asset management simplicity.
To explain a little more about this journey, let’s first take a look at the relationship between operational asset management (OAM) and strategic asset management (SAM). OAM is focussed on helping customers manage their day-to-day operations and enables customers to capture and track defects across the highways infrastructure, manage works, and monitor performance of highways assets. SAM takes in long-term planning: looking more holistically at the network and finding the right place to spend budget to optimise performance.
OAM and SAM are often linked by data aggregation. In other words, customers can get Improved modelling outcomes in their SAM by using operational data e.g. maintenance spend etc from their OAM. But the key to really driving operational and financial benefits is to ensure the information flow is not just one way. So, for example, provisional works programmes created in a SAM can be accessed in an OAM for review and refinement. This two-way tactical handshake helps ensure works programme refinement and delivery are achieved seamlessly.
Another important factor is to consider all of the organisations that play a role within highways maintenance. OAM and SAM typically sit with the asset owners: in other words, local and national highways authorities.
Of course, there are many other key functions that sit with maintenance contractors such as works management and financial management. These functions include planning, scheduling and delivering work and managing the financial aspect of being a contractor. Often, these areas have been siloed in different applications from different suppliers. Bridging the gap between local authorities and their contractors requires a two-way exchange of data from these applications to provide a shared data capability that delivers combined reporting and ultimately one version of the truth
To achieve this, the way forward is the application of open application programming interfaces (APIs). With such an approach, any data a client or contractor enters into the system is automatically made available via the API for passing on to other systems. These can also be allied with microservices: pieces of code that can be created to enable interaction, e.g. to enable specific data exchanges to occur between APIs, or to poll another source of data on a regular basis, or receive data when a particular change occurs in the data elsewhere
Positive prospects
The result of all this, is an end-to-end solution that makes asset management clear, simple and cost-efficient for both asset owners and maintenance contractors. To meet this need, we’ve developed a solution that uses best-of-breed technology to bridge the gap between local authorities and contractors. By providing job visibility end-to-end, our technology will support efficient works order execution alongside advanced asset management, making the whole process clear, simple and efficient for both parties.
From asset management to works execution, local authorities will be able to see the entire asset lifecycle from one solution, enabling them to get more from limited budgets. At the same time, contractors can get all the real-time data they need to maximise the efficiency of each job completed.
In short, we are bridging the gap between highways authorities and contractors.
If you would like to learn more about Causeway’s suite of asset management technology, drop us a note and we’ll be happy to arrange a conversation at a time convenient to you.
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