Definitions

Asset management refers to the system involved in monitoring and maintenance of things or products that are valuable to an entity or group. The asset management includes both tangible assets and intangible concepts like intellectual property.

Asset management is also defined as a systematic procedure of operating, sustaining, and improving the assets cost-effectively with passage of time.

In terms of engineering environment, the asset management is defined as the practice of managing assets for achieving highest return at low risks. It is widely used in case of productive assets like plant and equipments. Asset management involves maintenance and monitoring of systems that offer facilities with objective of offering best possible service to end users.

Categories

The asset management can be broadly categorized as Financial asset management, Enterprise asset management and Public asset management.

Financial asset management

It is also referred as the Investment management that involves management of collective investment schemes and separated client accounts in financial services industry.

Enterprise asset management

Enterprise asset management refers to the business processes and information systems that are used for effective and efficient management of the physical and non physical assets of the organization.

Physical asset management refers to procedures of managing the entire life cycle of physical and infrastructure assets.

The various stages of life cycle of physical and infrastructure asset are as follows.

· Design

· Construction

· Commissioning

· Operating

· Maintaining

· Repairing

· Modifying

· Replacing and Decommissioning

Examples of physical and infrastructure assets are as follows.

· Structures

· Production and service plant

· Power

· Water and waste treatment facilities

· Distribution networks

· Transport systems

· Buildings and other physical assets

Infrastructure asset management includes various other sectors such as public sector, property, utilities, and transport systems.

Fixed assets management refers to the accounting process that tracks fixed assets for the reasons of financial accounting.

IT asset management refers to the set of business procedures that links financial, contractual and inventory operations for supporting strategic decision making and life cycle management for the IT environment.

Digital asset management is the practice of management of electronic media content comprising of digital assets.

Public asset management

Public asset management adds to the scope of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) by including the management of all valuable things related to municipal jurisdiction and in line with the expectations of citizens.

An Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) requires the following components

· Asset registry that incorporates inventory of assets and their attributes

· Computerized maintenance management system

All public assets are related and share closeness to each other. These can be linked by using GIS-centric public asset management that standardizes data and enables interoperability.

GIS centric public asset management allows the following advantages

· Provides the users the ability to reuse, manage, and distribute information

· Efficient and effective manner for sharing information by using GIS geo-database the asset registry

· Regulate the data and enables interoperability

The land-focused asset management incorporates land-use development and planning that is interlinked to other local government work activities and assets.