Strategic asset management will deliver sustainability to councils
OneCouncil EAM can manage everything from land and property information, zoning, and permits to planning renewable energy projects and attracting new industries.
Local councils should stop treating asset management as a back-office chore and start recognising it as a key driver of strategic decision-making, according to TechnologyOne.
The average Australian council manages about $5 billion worth of infrastructure, from roads and drains to parks and public buildings, yet many still run their asset and finance systems in separate silos.
TechnologyOne’s answer to this challenge is OneCouncil, a Software-as-a-Service ERP platform designed specifically for councils.
It integrates finance, property and compliance, enterprise asset management (EAM), human resources and payroll, and document management into one system, removing the silos that have long plagued the administration of Australian councils.
OneCouncil EAM can manage everything from land and property information, zoning, and permits to planning renewable energy projects and attracting new industries.
“Just as infrastructure needs to be built, expanded, retired and replaced as communities grow and needs change, project management processes also need to adapt and modernise in order to keep pace,” said TechnologyOne’s Product General Manager for Asset Management, Gladstone Brohier.
While most government infrastructure investments are subject to some cost-benefit analysis in the planning stages, there is often little visibility into whether the build is being managed in the most efficient way nor the cost of maintaining the asset in years to come.
Worse, poorly managed assets can risk damage to irreplaceable assets or even create risks to the public.
“If you have this forecast to spend across the asset base, and your asset system is different and separate from the finance system, it is very difficult to track your forecast against your budgets versus your commitments,” Mr Brohier said. “With EAM, the line between the financial forecast, the budget, the commitment, and the actual spend across the asset base is streamlined.”
Without a live link between the money and the machinery, councils are left blind to the true condition of their assets and to the real cost of keeping them in service.
Internally, the EAM system underpins not just maintenance but long-term planning via Project Lifecycle Management, which tracks infrastructure projects from inception through delivery, upkeep and eventual retirement.
“It is the confidence that I am spending this dollar at the right place, at the right time, for the right purpose,” Mr Brohier said.
He said too many councils were plagued by the “Do Nothing principle”, a mix of organisational inertia and misplaced resource constraints.
“Then there is a bit of lethargy around, ‘I can’t be bothered going to a new system. I know I want the new system, but I can’t be bothered doing it now’.
“The other part is, ‘We don’t have the resources to do this’,” he said. “My argument is you do and the reason you think you don’t is because your resources are spending time on things they shouldn’t. If they came into a single system, that’s the time you’ll get back.”
Seventy-three per cent of Australian and New Zealand residents live in a council powered by TechnologyOne software.
“Technology innovation is ramping up, so it is essential that when councils consider investing in their public assets, they also consider their IT infrastructure or risk falling behind,” Mr Brohier said. “New strides in artificial intelligence (AI) is already enabling Australian councils to shift from reactive maintenance based on resident feedback and scheduled inspections to proactively assessing asset performance.”
For example, AI capability provided by Retina Visions is already used in a number of Australian communities in conjunction with TechnologyOne EAM to detect and rectify issues before they become costly problems or risks to public safety.
Retina Visions cameras mounted on waste trucks scan council-managed roads and footpaths to automatically capture and analyse images to detect potholes, cracks, trip hazards and overgrown vegetation.
Each defect is then uploaded directly into the TechnologyOne EAM platform which then triages the issues, and automated work orders are generated with GPS co-ordinates and photographs attached.
These are instantly dispatched to field crews, who can respond in real time.
This automation also creates a comprehensive, real-time record of asset health across the network.
The result is a closed feedback loop: defects are identified, prioritised, repaired, and recorded in the system - all without time-consuming manual data entry.
That live loop between the field and the ledger has benefits far beyond day-to-day maintenance, especially when natural disasters strike.
Mr Brohier said the ability to present pre and post-event asset data directly within the finance system made it easier to justify grants and emergency budget changes.
“It’s really about the data we collect in the field, and where the community sees the assets existing,” Mr Brohier said.
“We collect the data, and that data really informs us about our strategic positioning and strategic investment across our asset base. Without that direct link from asset management to finance, you really can’t make that strategic assessment. You can’t go in the strategic direction you need to.”
Leveraging more than 37 years’ experience working with councils across Australia and New Zealand, TechnologyOne’s purpose built OneCouncil SaaS ERP solution helps local governments modernise and adapt to the evolving landscape and do more with less.