Strategic asset management: Assessment tool for educational building in Egypt

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to develop a Strategic Asset Management Framework (SAMF) for educational buildings in Egypt. The General Authority for Educational Buildings (GAEB) was chosen as a case study as it represents the biggest governmental organization responsible for planning, operating and maintaining schools in Egypt. This is achieved first through reviewing the literature of strategic asset management. In the next stage, structured interviews were conducted with senior managers of GAEB using a pre designed questionnaire to explore the current practice of asset management (AM). Gap analysis technique was applied against best practices compounded from a vast literature review and showed that the areas related to “people and organization” category are the weakest areas. Based on the findings, a SAMF for GAEB was developed. The study developed a checklist to be applied as a multifunctional tool for framework implementation and self assessment of asset management maturity. The developed checklist tool and its mechanism not only assess the overall AM maturity but also allow assessing the detailed step by step level of implementation of the framework. The framework was developed to improve GAEB AM performance and to reach at least the “Systematic Approach” level as a first stage in the improvement process. The framework has been implemented and the overall performance achieved the target score that lies in the range of Systematic Approach level, more over the areas related to “people and organization” category which represented a main weakness in GAEB have achieved a remarkable improvement.