Abstract
Human resources are one of the most important assets of water utilities (WUs), being responsible for assuring systems management and playing an important role in the tacit forms of organizational knowledge. In organizations with responsibility for managing extensive, diverse infrastructure with long life-cycles, with adequate service and acceptable risk levels, knowledge transfer between peers should be assured to maintain a stable human resources framework. In WUs, strategic asset management should include the long-term planning of human resources alongside urban water infrastructure assets, to ensure service sustainability. Based on these assumptions and driven by the legal obligations in developing infrastructure asset management plans, Administração e Gestão de Sistemas de Salubridade, S.A. (AGS) created and implemented a novel personnel aging index (PAI) with the main goal of evaluating the human resources framework, including employee ages and professional categories, and the remaining time needed to transfer knowledge to new members of staff. This paper describes AGS' approach to human resources management under the asset management policy and PAI's formulation. A case study with 10 AGS WUs is presented, aiming to evaluate their teams' maturity level and allowing comparison between WUs.
Highlights
Strategic asset management in water utilities (WUs) implies the challenge of managing extensive infrastructure assets while meeting a required service level in the most cost-effective way
Administração e Gestão de Sistemas de Salubridade, S.A. (AGS) is a Portuguese multi-operator owned by Marubeni and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan that manages 13 WUs in Portugal and Brazil under long-term concession agreements
When WU 3’s technical department is analyzed (Table 4), the results indicate that the UT category presents an even lower value (0.28) and that it is closer to retirement than any other group there
Summary
Strategic asset management in water utilities (WUs) implies the challenge of managing extensive infrastructure assets while meeting a required service level in the most cost-effective way. In Portugal, asset management policies have been assuming an increasingly important role as it is mandatory to develop infrastructure asset management (IAM) plans. For this reason, national utilities’ concerns are focused on long-term infrastructure planning. IAM has always played an important role in AGS due to its contractual obligations and more recently because of legal planning requirements Team balance, taking the previous concerns into account, should be determined to try to ensure service sustainability in the longer-term
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
