As organizations seek to increase productivity, they must make better decisions on spending both operation and capital dollars. The goal of asset management is to improve the knowledge of the condition of our assets to achieve a balance of risk, performance and cost.

John Stead, senior equipment specialist at AltaLink in Calgary, AB, Canada, will present a session on “Bottom-Up Asset Management” at the Finepoint Circuit Breaker Test and Maintenance Training conference on Wednesday, Oct. 8.

His presentation will illustrate, through the use of a case study, the bottom-up concept, which focuses on core physical assets and how these assets, together with intellectual capital embedded in your employees, contributes to the long-term success of your organization.

The bottom-up methodology enables the employee to understand more fully how they contribute to the success of the organization and to become more accepting of the changes required to become an asset management-focused company.

“It’s actually an old perspective, where you invest in your employees, not in process and technology, which is required--but not at the expense of your people,” Stead said.

The case study illustrates the values of combining the creativity and practical knowledge of front-line employees of AltaLink Management Ltd. and the entrepreneurship of Cantega Technologies Inc. The presentation will describe the bottom-up asset management application in addressing wild-life contact-induced outages, which contribute to between 17 and 20 percent of outages on AltaLink's 25-kV bus system.
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Stead said that many older employees are leaving utilities with a ton of knowledge, and most companies are not reacting to this change. “They are still trying to rely on silver bullets from process or technology presented by consultants,” Stead said.

Finepoint is a good venue for this presentation because it attracts a lot of front-line field staff, who are main contributors to the bottom-up style, according to Stead. “I hope they realize how much knowledge they actually have and are encouraged by the fact that some people do realize this fact."

Stead is senior equipment specialist at AltaLink in Calgary, AB, Canada. He is developing an asset management strategy, including a front-end application capable of assessing equipment on multiple conditions taken from various sources tied to the corporate CMMS. He has been involved in the maintenance and operation areas of the utility industry for more than 35 years.

Stead is also senior consultant with Stead Consulting Inc. During the last several years he has been working with Canadian and American utilities in the development of and training in maintenance programs and procedures. Prior to that, he supplied technical support to the line organization with Trans Alta Utilities and was project manager for the implementation of reliability-centered maintenance.