Image: Illustration showing assets empowered to manage most of its own operations, maintenance and repair, by Duncan McFarlane

CSIC Co-Investigators, Professor Duncan McFarlane, Head of the Distributed and Information Automation Laboratory (DIAL) and Ajith Parlikad, Head of Asset Management, at the IfM (Institute for Manufacturing) have co-authored the ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers) Guidance Paper that explains how technological innovation and advances in sensing and data management are shaping smart infrastructure. The additional authors and contributors are: David Pocock, Director Asset Management and Materials at CH2M; Simon Parsons, Director RealFoundations; Jennifer Schooling, Director CSIC and Charles Jensen, Knowledge Content Producer at ICE.

The Guidance Paper, titled Intelligent Assets for Tomorrow’s Infrastructure: Guiding Principles, provides valuable insight for those using data to improve asset management (either in construction or operation), to save time and money and increase the value of the asset. The document brings together a number of recent ICE publications covering smart infrastructure and shows how civil engineers can enable its underlying assets. Examples of current developments where technologies are being used in infrastructure asset management to gain efficiencies and reduce waste are given.

The publication is timely. As Sir John Armitt, ICE Past-President and member of the National Infrastructure Commission states in his foreword: “Infrastructure sensing is becoming simpler, cheaper and more versatile. Data can now be readily collected, analysed in real time and compared across assets, companies and countries. The fast pace of technological change means that the cost of developments such as sensors and data storage is decreasing rapidly. This enables better decisions on the construction of future assets, better running of today’s existing assets, and far better avoidance of failure, not to mention long term financial benefits such as significantly reducing whole-life costs.”

Intelligent Assets for Tomorrow’s Infrastructure: Guiding Principles is available to download here

For more information on related ICE information, case studies and books see here