Asset Management Activities Research Articles

Post-crisis Regulation of Asset Management

While asset managers’ behavior has not been among the root causes of the financial crisis, their industry’s size and structure have generated financial stability concerns among policymakers. Global regulatory bodies nowadays agree that asset management activities are “systemically important”. On the other hand, the growth in retail activities has prompted regulatory and self-regulatory bodies to enact new rules relating to conduct of business, advice and best execution.Our essay briefly reviews global reforms affecting the asset management industry, focusing first on systemic interventions and then discussing investor protection reforms. To conclude, it addresses some emerging issues that we expect to be on policymakers’ agenda in the future.

Railway Track Condition Assessment at Network Level by Frequency Domain Analysis of GPR Data

The railway track system is a crucial infrastructure for the transportation of people and goods in modern societies. With the increase in railway traffic, the availability of the track for monitoring and maintenance purposes is becoming significantly reduced. Therefore, continuous non-destructive monitoring tools for track diagnoses take on even greater importance. In this context, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technique results yield valuable information on track condition, mainly in the identification of the degradation of its physical and mechanical characteristics caused by subsurface malfunctions. Nevertheless, the application of GPR to assess the ballast condition is a challenging task because the material electromagnetic properties are sensitive to both the ballast grading and water content. This work presents a novel approach, fast and practical for surveying and analysing long sections of transport infrastructure, based mainly on expedite frequency domain analysis of the GPR signal. Examples are presented with the identification of track events, ballast interventions and potential locations of malfunctions. The approach, developed to identify changes in the track infrastructure, allows for a user-friendly visualisation of the track condition, even for GPR non-professionals such as railways engineers, and may further be used to correlate with track geometric parameters. It aims to automatically detect sudden variations in the GPR signals, obtained with successive surveys over long stretches of railway lines, thus providing valuable information in asset management activities of infrastructure managers.

Vibration Spectrum Analysis for Indicating Damage on Turbine and Steam Generator Amurang Unit 1

Maintenance on machines is a mandatory asset management activity to maintain asset reliability in order to reduce losses due to failure. 89% of defects have random failure mode, the proper maintenance method is predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance object in this research is Steam Generator Amurang Unit 1, which is predictive maintenance is done through condition monitoring in the form of vibration analysis. The conducting vibration analysis on Amurang Unit 1 Steam Generator is because vibration analysis is very effective on rotating objects. Vibration analysis is predicting the damage based on the vibration spectrum, where the vibration spectrum is the result of separating time-based vibrations and simplifying them into vibrations based on their frequency domain. The transformation of time-domain-wave into frequency-domain-wave is using the application of FFT, namely AMS Machinery. The measurement of vibration value is done on turbine bearings and steam generator of Unit 1 Amurang using Turbine Supervisory Instrument and CSI 2600 instrument. The result of this research indicates that vibration spectrum from Unit 1 Amurang Power Plant indicating that there is rotating looseness, even though the vibration value does not require the Unit 1 Amurang Power Plant to stop operating (shut down). This rotating looseness, at some point, can produce some indications that similar with the unbalance. In order to avoid more severe vibrations, it is necessary to do inspection on the bearings in the Amurang Unit 1 Power Plant.

The capacity gap: Understanding impediments to sustainable drinking water systems in rural Newfoundland and Labrador

This article outlines the results of a two-year research project that examined drinking water challenges in rural and small-town Newfoundland and Labrador. A mixed-methods approach was used, including literature review, media scans, a driver-pressure-state-impact-response analysis, policy workshops, community surveys and consultations, case studies and key informant interviews. This interdisciplinary study examined four interrelated components of drinking water systems: source water quality and quantity; water infrastructure and operations; public perception, awareness and demand; and policy and governance. Issues identified include: aging, degrading and inappropriate infrastructure; high disinfectant by-products; use and misuse of chlorine; long-term boil water advisories; use of untreated water sources; and minimal source water protection. As other studies have found elsewhere in Canada, local actors in Newfoundland and Labrador communities of 1000 or fewer often exhibit inadequate technical/human, social, institutional and financial capacity to address their drinking water challenges. New water policies and governance arrangements are needed that emphasize strategic and efficient investments, including the utilization of regional approaches, long-term planning and asset management activities. Furthermore, greater focus is needed on capacity development and the engagement and education of decision makers, staff, the public, and other groups that can help local governments address their drinking water challenges.

Investment Fund Risk: The Tale in the Tails

Efforts to develop risk assessment metrics for the non-bank financial sector have been given impetus following the post-crisis broadening of the IMF's Financial Stability Assessments and recent efforts by the Financial Stability Board to address structural vulnerabilities from asset management activities. Using a novel database of investment funds reporting in Ireland, we employ marginal expected shortfall metrics to capture investment fund exposures to pervasive industry-wide tail events. We reveal the primary fund sectors most responsible for widespread return shortfalls. Fund attributes are then used to explain (mostly) the cross-sectional variation in marginal expected shortfall using panel regression techniques. We find that leverage, derivative usage, redemption rates, cash holdings, openness and retail investor focus are important factors that consistently explain the variation in fund-specific sensitivity to pervasive tail risk. The trade-off between ex ante exposure to widespread extreme negative outcomes and fund performance is also explored.

Market Fragility and Interconnectedness in the Asset Management Industry

The relationship between asset management activities and financial stability risks has been a frequent topic of discussion among financial market participants and regulators in recent years. This discussion has arisen in light of the significant growth in the asset management industry and the increased focus on financial stability risks in the aftermath of the financial crisis. My remarks are intended to highlight the underlying economics of these issues to help provide a better understanding of their nature and significance. They are informed by a continuously emerging body of academic research, some of which is being performed by staff at the SEC, and all of which demonstrates the inherent complexities in thinking about potential contributions of asset management practices to market fragility concerns.

A Probabilistic Approach for InSAR Time-Series Postprocessing

Monitoring the kinematic behavior of enormous amounts of points and objects anywhere on Earth is now feasible on a weekly basis using radar interferometry from Earth-orbiting satellites. An increasing number of satellite missions are capable of delivering data that can be used to monitor geophysical processes, mining and construction activities, public infrastructure, or even individual buildings. The parameters estimated from these data are used to better understand various natural hazards, improve public safety, or enhance asset management activities. Yet, the mathematical estimation of kinematic parameters from interferometric data is an ill-posed problem as there is no unique solution, and small changes in the data may lead to significantly different parameter estimates. This problem results in multiple possible outcomes given the same data, hampering public acceptance, particularly in critical conditions. Here, we propose a method to address this problem in a probabilistic way, which is based on multiple hypotheses testing. We demonstrate that it is possible to systematically evaluate competing kinematic models in order to find an optimal model and to assign likelihoods to the results. Using the B-method of testing, a numerically efficient implementation is achieved, which is able to evaluate hundreds of competing models per point. Our approach will not solve the nonuniqueness problem of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), but it will allow users to critically evaluate (conflicting) results, avoid overinterpretation, and thereby consolidate InSAR as a geodetic technique.

MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS: MARRIED WOMEN AND CREDIT IN EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON.

Taking a micro-historical approach, this paper explores the business activities of Elizabeth Carter and Elizabeth Hatchett, two married women who operated together as pawnbrokers in London in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Based on a protracted inheritance dispute through which their extensive dealings come to light, the discussion assesses married women's lending and investment strategies in a burgeoning metropolitan economy; the networks through which women lenders operated; and the extent to which wives could sidestep the legal conventions of 'coverture' which restricted their ownership of moveable property. It is argued that the moneylending and asset management activities of women like Carter and Hatchett were an important part of married women's work that did not simply consolidate neighbourhood ties but that placed them at the heart of the early modern economy.

When asset management and organisations meet: accounting for employee experiences

For some time, organisations have encountered challenges when implementing asset management, particularly when closing the gap between how the asset management is understood by employees and how they support it in practice. Maturity models, common applied evaluations for implementing asset management, have so far only addressed the extent to which implemented asset management matches prescriptive standards. In this paper, we argue that, beside the value of maturity evaluations, shortcomings of maturity models remain in accounting for employee experiences with specific operational characteristics that challenge implementation. We then offer a criteria-free, employee-based approach to complement maturity models known as Rumelt's tests. By applying this approach to the case of a Dutch transportation agency, we show how employees understand the organisation's strategy behind asset management and how they coordinate asset management activities in practice.

Social Housing Organisations in England and The Netherlands

Rapid and deep changes in society, the economy and policy over the last decades are having an increasing impact on the delivery of social housing in North Western Europe. These changes are transforming the way in which social housing providers perform their task and are reshaping their relationships with the State, communities and with other market actors. The combination of continued State withdrawal from service provision, the deep and persistent effects of the global financial crisis that begun in 2008 and profound changes in the type of demand for social housing across North Western Europe call for a reflection on the implications of these phenomena for social housing providers. Several studies indicate that social housing providers in Europe have begun to adopt new (social) entrepreneurial strategies and are becoming more innovative as a response to these challenges. These strategies imply tackling the tensions between (at times) conflicting drivers, notably those arising from the State, the market and communities. However, research in this topic so far is fragmented, focussing on one country or on specific sub-areas such as asset management and non-housing activities and rarely connects with the relevant wider literature on the third sector and social enterprise. Within this context, this PhD research has sought to widen this discussion by providing new insights through a comparative study of the ways in which individual social housing providers are relating to (i.e. responding to and influencing) these contextual changes. More specifically, the research sought to better understand the complex process of decision-making these companies undergo to manage their responses to competing drivers. Companies operating in two countries (England and The Netherlands) were studied in-depth. In both countries, the social rental sector has played a prominent role in their respective welfare states for decades. While both are amongst countries with the highest share of social rental housing in Europe, each represents a different type of welfare state and of social housing provision - following Kemeny’s classification, a unitary system (the Netherlands) and a dualist system (England).

The role of rules-based compliance systems in the new EU regulatory landscape

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how institutional changes to the European Union regulatory landscape may affect corresponding institutionalized operational practices within financial organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts an Investment Management System as its case and investigates different implementations of this system within eight financial organizations, predominantly focused on investment banking and asset management activities within capital markets. At the systems vendor site, senior systems consultants and client relationship managers were interviewed. Within the financial organizations, compliance, risk and systems experts were interviewed. Findings – The study empirically tests modes of institutional change. Displacement and Layering were found to be the most prevalent modes. However, the study highlights how the outcomes of Displacement and Drift may be similar in effect as both modes may cause compliance gaps. The research highlights how changes in regulations may create gaps in systems and processes which, in the short term, need to be plugged by manual processes. Practical implications – Vendors abilities to manage institutional change caused by Drift, Displacement, Layering and Conversion and their ability to efficiently and quickly translate institutional variables into structured systems has the power to ease the pain and cost of compliance as well as reducing the risk of breeches by reducing the need for interim manual systems. Originality/value – The study makes a contribution by applying recent theoretical concepts of institutional change to the topic of regulatory change uses this analysis to provide insight into the effects of this new environment.

Assessment of Banks Asset and Liability Management: Problems and Perspectives (Case of Lithuania)

Asset and liability management is one of the most important risk management measures at a bank. It is one of most important tool for decision making that sets out to maximize stakeholder value. Nevertheless it is important to track the external factors of the asset and liability management in the market to remain in the long term and to prepare for negative effects. Banking sector analysis could be the instrument to measure the sustainability of the country's financial sector. This paper showed Lithuanian banking sector asset and liability management activity and make assumptions of how sustainable the sector are during the different business cycle stages and how banks can manage their risks according to business cycles. The analysis revealed that banks tend to take more risk over time. The cycles of bank assets and liability are not identical to the cycles of business activity level, therefore it is seen that banks manage their assets and liability and attempt to influence their activity and profitability. The results indicate why the banks tend to enhance their risk levels before and during the financial crisis.

Canal breach risk assessment for improved asset management

Advances in inundation modelling software, computer hardware and national data sets mean that it is now practical to use full solutions of the two-dimensional (2D) shallow water equations (SWE) to undertake national-scale modelling of breach inundation. Such modelling enables much improved asset management activities, which lead to reduced risk to life, lower risk of damage to properties and a much better targeting of investment by asset owners. This paper describes how a 2D SWE inundation modelling system was designed and applied to the UK Canal and River Trust canal system as part of a quantitative high-level risk assessment framework. The framework includes a new approach for estimating breach probability and hydrographs in the canal system for potential embankment and culvert failures. An innovative automated model build-and-run process using Isis 2D software was applied to model inundation in urban areas. Predicted likely loss of life and property damage outputs were used to generate a risk chart to prioritise asset inspection and maintenance.

The strategic role of Engineering Asset Management

The current concept of an asset management (AM) system focuses on the lifecycle of engineered assets and little has been done in the literature on its link to organizational strategy. In this paper, the AM system′s position within an organizational structure and its role in competitive strategy has been explored. Two case studies involving AM have been analyzed using a proposed framework which is comprised of a set of planning and control activities maintaining a control mechanism and a relationship with the strategy-making process. It is argued that the AM system structure and the mechanism play a key role in the organizational strategy. The existence of the AM system is hypothesized by this framework which stipulates the asset performance required for strategic success. The use of this framework allows for conclusions to be drawn on the requirements for building an effective connection between AM activities and strategy development. This connection is achieved through planning and control mechanisms acting on the asset-related activities. On one hand, the effect of inadequate or missing elements of the framework has been shown to result in negative impacts on cost, productivity, quality, business outcomes and ultimately strategy achievement. On the other hand, the existence of elements of this framework has been shown to have positive impacts on strategy achievement.

Agent-based simulation of urban infrastructure asset management activities

Abstract This paper presents a case for adopting agent-based modeling (ABM) as a framework for representing the complex interactions that occur within the context of urban infrastructure management. A generic ABM is proposed with four key agents namely; assets, users, operators and politicians. For each agent a set of generic attributes, actions and behaviors are defined. A detailed behavioral model is adapted from the service quality domain to represent customer perceptions and actions related to infrastructure level of service. An illustrative example of 20 assets and 50 user agents is simulated to demonstrate emergent agent behavior. The simulation highlights how varying user social and psychological behavior influences their response to consuming municipal infrastructure services. The model is evaluated by contrasting with a tradition Markov Decision Process framework. Results demonstrate how socio-technical aspects can be included within the complex decision making process of urban infrastructure management.

A Quantitative Risk-Based Approach to the Transparency on Non-Equity Investment Products

The purpose of the transparency on the risk profile of non-equity investment products is to allow investors to take informed investment decisions. In an international framework characterized by an increasing globalization of markets and a growing integration of banking, asset management and insurance activities, the traditional use of narrative descriptions of the various risks is no longer effective. On the contrary, it would be better to use synthetic indicators which are immediately comprehensible to investors and defined in relation to robust and objective quantitative metrics. The result is a risk-based approach to transparency built on three pillars: the recommended investment time horizon, that is the investment horizon which is compatible with the investor's liquidity preferences, the potential returns that the non-equity investment product can offer to the investor, and the degree of risk associated with that product.The information obtained from these three pillars allows to determine the essential elements of the financial investment, both for the purposes of the disclosure to be provided in offering prospectuses, and for the suitability tests performed by distributors.To ensure a concrete implementation of the risk-based approach to transparency, the current fragmentation of the EU regulatory framework should be overcome through the issuing of a single directive on the transparency of non-equity investment products able to concretely realize the levelling the playing field principle. In this perspective, the Italian law-maker could intervene to align the transparency requirements of class I policies to those of the financial-insurance products already under the Consob supervision.

Asset management techniques for transformers

In a deregulated/reformed environment, the electric utilities are under constant pressure for reducing operating costs, enhancing the reliability of transmission and distribution equipments, and improving quality of power and services to the customer. Moreover, the risk involved in running the system without proper attention to assets integrity in service is quite high. Additionally, the probability of losing any equipment vital to the transmission and distribution system, such as power and distribution transformers, is increasing especially with the aging of power system's assets. Today the focus of operating the power system is changed and efforts are being directed to explore new approaches/techniques of monitoring, diagnosis, condition evaluation, maintenance, life assessment, and possibility of extending the life of existing assets. In this paper, a comprehensive illustration of the transformer asset management activities is presented. The importance of each activity together with the latest researches done in the area is highlighted.

Towards a learning organisation: the application of process‐based knowledge maps to asset management (a case study)

AbstractThis paper presents a practical methodology for developing a process‐based Knowledge Management System (KMS) to assist Asset Management and, at the same time, support the creation of a true Learning Organisation. The KMS integrates existing management databases, process maps supporting operations, maintenance and improvement initiatives and Intranet resources and knowledge repositories.This systematic approach promotes continuous improvement (CI) through the consideration of corporate strategic plans and the utilisation of available data already held within the company's management databases (production, quality and maintenance). Process maps play a key role in the KMS as they are used effectively to define the manner in which data should be analysed, and to trigger the implementation of improvement tools and running of operations and maintenance tasks in a true CI environment. The KMS ensures a consistent and rigorous approach to carry out all improvement initiatives and other key asset management activities. The final part of the methodology addresses the creation of an Intranet‐based knowledge repository. This repository allows searching stored knowledge about issues such as current assets, new knowledge generated from improvement projects, details of expertise located in different areas of the company, key business drivers, etc. This methodology acknowledges both the tacit and explicit knowledge within the company, and it represents an appropriate environment to promote and develop a true learning organisation. The application of process maps promotes the operationalisation of knowledge, which helps to retain organisational knowledge. Although based on a case study, this process‐based KMS could be adapted to SMEs or large manufacturing organisations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improved responsiveness of reconfigurable manufacturing systems using a standards-based approach to assess manufacturing capacity

Market acceptance of the S95 enterprise-control system integration standard and its adoption in IEC 62264, combined with the use of the ISO 15745 application integration scheme, offers a common framework for integrating diagnostic and control activities with asset maintenance and management activities. This paper describes a standard-based approach to improve the responsiveness of reconfigurable systems by using condition-based maintenance and diagnostics information to assess manufacturing capacity. Use of integration models and interoperability schemas enable manufacturing management to have greater visibility into the current state and the capabilities of manufacturing assets to meet scheduled manufacturing requirements.

Design of trip current monitoring system for circuit breaker condition assessment

A distributed system, which supports circuit breaker maintenance and asset management, is described. It uses a client/server architecture for propagating expert knowledge from switchgear maintenance experts directly to maintenance operatives for on-site circuit breaker condition assessment and diagnosis. Prior research in the field of distribution level circuit breaker condition monitoring has shown the trip coil of a circuit breaker yields a current profile that, when tripped, can subsequently be interpreted as an indicator of plant health. Exploiting existing circuit breaker test equipment, a centralised archive of asset condition is built from routine tests permitting experts to examine trends in the data and pass their definition of the operating conditions to personnel in the field. This provides diagnostic support to engineers in the field. The system is currently in use as the subject of a pilot study conducted by SP PowerSystems intended to improve its ongoing maintenance and asset management activities.