Policy statement
The Town of Oakville will protect and enhance the quality of life in Oakville by making the best possible decisions regarding Town of Oakville (town) assets in a way that provides targeted levels of service and manages risk in a cost-effective manner throughout the entire asset life cycle in order to create customer value through enhancing community asset management.
The town will manage infrastructure assets in a strategic, comprehensive, enterprise‐wide manner through an integrated business approach that relies on well‐devised strategies, trained knowledgeable staff, and good communication with all stakeholders to achieve desired levels of service. This requires that all assets be treated as interrelated components in a unified system, rather than as isolated parts.
Purpose
This policy supports the town’s four Key Strategic Directions.
This policy defines the principles by which the town will develop asset management capability, ensuring asset needs are understood and effective solutions are developed. Successfully delivering these principles will drive the required service and value from town assets, meeting or exceeding our customer expectations.
Scope
This policy covers the management of the town’s asset portfolio. The principles below have been established in line with leading practices.
Forward-Looking and Sustainable: The town will incorporate social, legislative, environmental and financial considerations into decisions, taking into account present and future service commitments, giving due attention to the long-term stewardship of assets.
Sound Asset Information: The town will collect, collate, control, and circulate the right asset information, at the right time.
Robust, Repeatable and Transparent Decision Making: The town will utilize a formal but scalable, consistent, and repeatable approach to manage infrastructure assets, enabling services to be provided in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.
Whole Life Cycle Cost Perspective: The town will consider the combined impact of all aspects of the asset life-cycle – acquiring, operating, maintaining, renewing, and retiring assets. No new assets will be constructed/acquired without considering future operating and maintenance costs. Asset performance will be monitored throughout the asset life cycle and will be used to make recommendations on future asset acquisition.
Risk-Based Perspective: The town will direct resources, expenditures, and priorities to achieve the agreed service outcomes and benefits, at acceptable levels of risk and proactively plan for climate related impacts that have the potential to compromise town assets.
People-Focused (Customers and Staff): The town will adopt a service-based approach to managing assets and will only accommodate additional demand for services without detriment to current levels of service.
Definitions
Asset: an asset is an item, thing or entity that has potential or actual value to an organization. The value can be tangible or intangible and financial or non-financial.
Asset management: asset management is an integrated approach, involving all Town departments, to effectively manage existing and new assets. The intent is to maximize benefits, reduce risks, and provide satisfactory levels of service to the community in a sustainable manner. Good asset management practices are fundamental to achieving sustainable communities.
Levels of service: describes the outputs or objectives that the Town intends to deliver; includes measures at the corporate, customer, and asset levels of the organization.
Life cycle cost: sum of all recurring and one-time (non-recurring) costs over the full life span or a specified period of a good, service, structure, or system. It includes purchase price, installation cost, operating costs, maintenance and upgrade costs, and remaining (residual or salvage) value at the end of ownership or useful life, and disposal costs, if appropriate.