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Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction

Transforming infrastructure through smarter information
 
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An article presenting the CSIC Line of Sight Methodology that sets out a new approach to provide organisations with a line of sight between assets and organisational objectives to enable better outcomes, has been featured in industry publication Infrastructure Intelligence.

The article is co-written by CSIC Director Dr Jennifer Schooling and Impact Director at the Construction Innovation Hub, David Philp, who will be presenting ‘Implementing Government Soft Landings and the Line of Sight Methodology’ at Digital Construction Week on Wednesday 24 November at 3pm.

The article sets out a common asset management problem that can hinder organisations from optimising delivery of their objectives and realising business success: “Many organisations struggle to make a clear and quantified link between the function and condition of an individual asset within a system – be it a building or a railway network – and the value that it brings in terms of delivering organisational objectives. This has consequences. Not having a line of sight between these individual points of reference can, for example, make it hard to justify investment in a substantial piece of maintenance or to prioritise works and management interventions when, as inevitably happens, there is more to be done than there is budget available. “

Offering examples to show how the methodology works, the article explains how the Methodology provides a line of sight for information requirements and enables an organisation to gather the information required to support organisational objectives and to optimise the use of the information for better decision-making.

“For example, in the case of a bridge in a railway system, the structural engineer needs to understand the condition of the bridge. What might not be quite so clear to them is the details of how that bridge helps to deliver the function of having trains running on time – the organisational objective. Having a line of sight helps link what the structural engineer knows and understands with what the route asset manager knows and understands with, in turn, what the rail operations director knows and understands. It helps them all understand what information they need from whom. The Line of Sight Methodology provides a structured way of both defining and linking those information requirements together in an information architecture.”

 

• Read the full article in Infrastructure Intelligence here.

• Read the Line of Sight: an Asset Management Methodology to Support Organisational Objectives here.

• Read the Network Rail case study on the Line of Sight Methodology as featured in the CSIC Annual Review 2020 here.

• Register to attend the event presented by David Philp, ‘Implementing Government Soft Landings and the Line of Sight Methodology’ at Digital Construction Week, 24 November at 3pm to 3.30pm, here.

 

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