SIMS Engineering is a subsidiary of the well-established Engineering and Project Management Consultancy, Project Management Professional Services (see www.pmpservices.co.nz & www.pmpservices.com.au), and a part of the IPM Engineering group (see www.ipmengineering.com.au) of Consulting, Recruitment, Contracting, Sales and Distribution businesses operating across Australia and New Zealand in a broad range of Industries. SIMS Engineering draws on the extensive experience of its associated companies and key personnel who have provided engineering, project management and maintenance planning support to several billion dollars’ worth of major infrastructure and utility projects throughout the Asia pacific region.
SIMS Engineering (see www.sims.engineering) specialises in facilities/asset management and maintenance programmes for water and wastewater treatment plants and other infrastructure assets. The company was established in response to an unanswered need in the infrastructure sector for better asset data management, preventative maintenance and infrastructure project planning. Many large organizations (particularly government agencies) have a large number of infrastructure assets spread across the country but have very little information on the condition of these assets or even when they last had a maintenance service. This issue is typical as highlighted in the following media reports:
“Treasury warns government about overspend, poor planning on major infrastructure projects”
See https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/535175/treasury-warns-government-about-overspend-poor-planning-on-major-infrastructure-projects
which states:
“The Government has been handed a grim Treasury warning as it struggles with how to plan, manage and pay for billions of dollars’ worth of roads, hospitals, courthouses and water projects.
Treasury told Minister of Infrastructure Chris Bishop that many agencies lack understanding about planning large infrastructure projects, and this was “exacerbated by skills and capability gaps and poor asset planning and management……
“There are large gaps in our understanding of the state of the Crown’s assets, as well as a lack of comprehensive planning to maintain, renew, replace or dispose of assets,” Treasury also warned the government.”.
“It said in the foreword: “This report … paints a confronting picture – pointing to consistently low levels of asset management maturity across nearly all of New Zealand’s public infrastructure.
“Transmission Gully partnership breakdown will not hurt future public-private partnerships, Infrastructure Minister says”
See https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/537318/transmission-gully-partnership-breakdown-will-not-hurt-future-public-private-partnerships-infrastructure-minister-says
which states:
“This report … paints a confronting picture – pointing to consistently low levels of asset management maturity across nearly all of New Zealand’s public infrastructure.
“Half of our hospital estate is over 40 years old and is in poor condition; the quality of our subsurface assets is oftentimes unknown: out of sight, out of mind.”
Infrastructure Asset Maintenance issues –
Many of these dispersed infrastructure assets are maintained on an ad hoc basis by a multitude of local service providers doing their best under the circumstances but lacking an understanding of national standards and codes of practice and continuously reinventing the wheel by implementing a variety of local solutions to common problems often installing non-compliance systems that later have to be replaced with compliant systems when funds become available for capital upgrade projects.
On the other hand, when Infrastructure asset owners engage larger contractors with regional or national coverage these larger organisations often push aside the local service providers that have traditionally provided this service and bring in resources from major centres increasing both travel time and expenses, overheads and response times as they often do not have their own resources close to infrastructure asset sites. Whatever local knowledge that was held by the previous incumbent local service provider is lost and the new larger organizations still often lack the data management and planning tools to effectively and efficiently implement a preventative maintenance program. Larger organisations are also more interested in capital projects to replace infrastructure assets rather than maintain and prolong their useful life through effective preventive maintenance and minor upgrades programmes.
Infrastructure Asset Capital Project issues –
When local infrastructure assets are perceived to be beyond their economic life and capital upgrade projects are proposed to replace these assets these are often planned with a lack of useable data on the specification and condition of existing assets leading to poor prioritization of multiple projects competing for limited resources and poor implementation of approved projects. Often due to the lack of knowledge of the condition of existing assets, some existing assets that could have their useful life extended with minor upgrades or component replacements are scrapped and replaced with new systems that may not be fit for purpose, while other infrastructure assets that are in greater need of replacement do not receive the priority they deserve resulting in failures and associated unplanned shutdowns and urgent replacements at increased costs.
The Solution – SIMS Engineering
To address the problems and issues identified above SIMS Engineering has developed a national network of local service providers and larger national specialists’ partners with Infrastructure design, asset management software, telemetry and automation, manufacturing and construction capabilities. In collaboration with this network of partners SIMS Engineering provides the nationally consistent preventative maintenance, asset management and project management capabilities including standardised compliant designs, Quality Assurance and HSE Systems to ensure all partners meet industry best practice.
This collaborative model allows SIMS Engineering’s local service provider partners to provide efficient, cost effective and responsive local services which are nationally consistent and compliant across the network. The model is also scalable with the ability to increase resources or geographic reach by taking on new partners with existing local resources. SIMS Engineering also supports it’s larger contractor partners to tender for and execute major infrastructure upgrade projects increasing the capability and capacity of our network partners.
Our online system for “Infrastructure Data Management” captures and shares accurate infrastructure asset data including system specification, condition and a record of maintenance and component replacements undertaken. This information is shared with all relevant network partners and clients to ensure seamless co-ordination between different disciplines or when it may be necessary to engage a new local service provider so data and local knowledge is never lost and is always readily available to those who need to use it. This facilitates better planning for preventative maintenance programmes and allows co-ordination of visits to adjacent remote sites to minimise travel expenses for each site.
