I attended the Institute of Asset Management’s (IAM) UK Chapter Conference in Manchester on 14 November 2023. The IAM is the international body for asset management professionals and seeks to advance the discipline for people and organizations as well as for the benefit of the general public.

The theme of the chapter conference was “Addressing the Practicalities of Implementing and Embedding Asset Management,” and many of the programs and events spoke to this issue from various perspectives. It was fascinating to hear a broad range of thoughts from different sectors, whether national defense, utilities, or road and rail infrastructure, and how the IAM philosophy can be valuable for these organizations.

PSC UK’s Sean McConnon presenting at the UK’s Institute of Asset Management conference in Manchester.

The IAM runs an initiative called NxtGen, aimed at professionals and students who are new to or interested in asset management as a way to collaborate, develop and promote the discipline. As part of NxtGen, I, alongside six others, was asked to take part in a session and deliver a presentation based on asset management work we have been involved in; my own presentation was related to a recent PSC project that involved high-voltage power equipment. The session was very interesting and great to hear different insights into asset management philosophy and methodologies across various industries and ventures and how important and fruitful utilizing asset management philosophy can be. A key aspect I noticed was that the approach is similar no matter the discipline, and it was interesting to see how industry-specific challenges were tackled in each of these projects.

My overall takeaway from the two days was that asset management is something that can be useful for any organization and ensuring good asset management practices can help to improve reputation, reduce operating costs and allow for better insights into the future of business. For example, in optimizing maintenance and replacement actions.

A common theme rang through the conference: the benefit to everyone in having some insight into asset management, whether it be the process or the philosophy itself.

As a relative newcomer to asset management, I learned a lot in the two days of the conference. The IAM has many useful resources for anyone interested in asset management and its benefits, most notably their anatomy document, which I would highly encourage anyone to read.