Improving network reliability through effective asset management

Asset management is quite prominent and progressive discipline that provides an agile framework of good practices for assisting organizations that rely on the physical assets to achieve their objectives consistently and efficiently within a quality time. The discipline of asset management has now aggravated to the point, where key principles of good practice have been embodied in the international standard ISO55000:2014, with many mature organizations, nowadays, seeking to align their procedures and practices to obtain certification to this standard. However, it is our personal observation that many organizations, particularly, those of smaller size or those quite nascent to these principles of asset management can attain a lot of benefits, by applying these principles without formally implementing systems in accordance with the international standards. This paper discusses four key principles of asset management, and two asset management tools that have been found beneficial to electricity distribution utilities globally. Two supporting cases from Malaysia and Thailand are also discussed, where Malaysia TNB Distribution system is used as the knowledge base to confront the potential improvement of network reliability in electric power system network of Thailand through effective asset management strategy.