3 Benefits of Asset Investment Planning for Government

Asset Investment Planning (AIP) may sound complex to some, but it really isn’t. The simple fact is governments own a lot of things like equipment, property, buildings, fleet, and machines. And these “things” are important to keep their community running effectively. As assets age and begin to break down, AIP helps cities and towns better forecast their long-term maintenance needs, making it easier to prioritize repairs and replacements.

With an AIP solution, government leaders can help answer questions like: 

• When is the right time to replace an asset? Ideally, replacement should happen before an asset fails. How long before depends on its condition, usage, expected life, and criticality (i.e. how critical is it for the proper functioning of your community). As fiscal stewards of taxpayer money, governments should focus on maximizing the value of the things they buy, so replacement should happen before the asset costs too much to maintain. 
• How do you time a replacement? Most governments don’t have the luxury of being able to replace many high-ticket items at the same time -- they must plan for it. Ideally, governments should understand what needs replacement over several years, so they can prepare the proper funding strategy. 
• How do you prioritize projects? With more projects than money, most governments need to replace critical assets first. The way priorities are determined must be clear and should be widely accepted.  

A proper AIP framework gathers and centralizes the data you have and delivers the insights you need for day-to-day maintenance and longer-term decisions for your community. This may seem daunting, but with the right partner and the right tools it doesn’t have to be. At Brightly, we view asset investment planning as a journey and have the tools to meet you wherever you are in that journey and help you move forward. To better understand the three phases of the Asset Investment Planning journey, keep reading.  

Positive outcomes of AIP

While there is a bit of upfront work, implementing and utilizing an AIP framework doesn’t need to be overwhelming. And even with minimal data, there are many benefits to the process.

Better capital plans

Capital plans lay out the investments a community is making in its infrastructure. Good capital plans result in better fiscal planning, fewer budget disruptions for emergency maintenance, and a clearer forecast of the community’s goals through its investments. Combing your data with Brightly’s forecasting tool, AIP helps governments see asset health across the entire community.  

Risk, condition, criticality, and maintenance cost show when an asset is at risk and its ideal replacement timing. Using this information, cities can project asset health into the future based on the existing maintenance funding level or alternative levels of funding. Using visual output and comparing funding choices over time can help the average resident better understand the "why" behind investment levels and prioritization decisions made by the town. 

Better operating budgets 

Operating budgets are intended to predict the funding needed to achieve the goals for a particular fiscal year (FY). The AIP framework uses your asset registry, work order data, and any new infrastructure coming online to help maintenance departments accurately predict annual FY maintenance needs. 

AIP helps you see where assets are in their lifecycle and request the appropriate level of funding to maintain your infrastructure. Additionally, the data around work order requests, time to resolve versus existing capacity can help present compelling data when requesting additional personnel.   

Better resident satisfaction

A key part of the AIP framework is the ability to better communicate community needs and fiscal expenditures. By using the framework, residents can see the reasons and outcomes of government expenditures, and this can increase buy-in and support for all projects, even those that may require additional funding.  Visualizations of the outcome of decisions being made can be a powerful tool in communicating need. 

But the biggest benefit is the ability to use the AIP framework to bring a cross-departmental, cross-functional group together to focus on the future and make active steps to move your community closer to its goals! 

Learn more about Brightly's Asset Management for Government solution and the Asset Investment Planning framework.