Asset management

Maximizing Asset Value

Asset Management is a formal strategy that protects WAPA’s most important physical equipment and systems by identifying and mitigating risk associated with those assets. WAPA’s AM program combines staff’s extensive field knowledge with data and risk analysis of maintenance activity, capital program planning and financial decision-making to lengthen the service life and improve return on investment of WAPA assets.

With staff throughout WAPA service territory, AM takes a two-pronged approach to maximizing asset value:

• Asset Planning collects and analyzes performance and lifecycle data to determine the condition of critical equipment and associated risk. This information supports planning for capital expenses and grid maintenance and repairs. Power Marketing, Operations, Transmission Business Unit, Construction and Engineering provide input into this process.

• Asset Maintenance also collects data—primarily from field crews—on the health and performance of components on WAPA’s transmission system, focusing on reliability-centered maintenance. RCM is a systematic approach to developing an optimal routine maintenance strategy with emphasis on predictive maintenance.

These functional areas share relevant data and input from other WAPA departments to develop databases and reports that inform data-driven decisions on budget development, capital plans, financial forecasting, maintenance schedules and strategic sourcing.

AM Objectives:

• Integrate all value-added assets into risk-based methodologies to strategically inform capital investments
• Maximize value of assets
• Correlate asset risk to transmission resilience
• Use asset performance data to inform best maintenance practices

Current AM Initiatives:

• Transmission Line Health Index – Developing a condition-based health index for transmission lines. Upon completion, all AM Tier I asset classes will have transitioned from age- to condition-based assessment.
• Facility Identification Assignment – Establishing a new database and upgrading tools for managing facility identification, or FID, codes.
• High-Consequence Asset Risk Mitigation Process – Implementing risk management processes and tools for equipment exceeding defined condition and risk thresholds. Upon completion, assets exceeding the consequence score threshold will be managed within the AM risk management processes.
• WAPA-Wide Oil Testing Program – Establishing a new common oil testing contract supporting WAPA-wide needs with standardized test results and data formatting. Additional goals include automation of data management and further development of test results analysis.

Additional Information

WAPA launched the AM program in 2015 based on the industry-accepted, International Standard ​Organization Standard (ISO) 55000, 55001 and 55002 – Asset Management. The program provided greater structure to the information gathered over many years of informal asset management and introduced standardized documentation, scoring and ranking systems to build a comprehensive assessment of the condition of WAPA assets. This approach also captures the risk associated with that condition, a unique feature of formal asset management that gives planners deeper insight into the organization’s capital needs. Another benefit of AM is that it preserves institutional knowledge that could otherwise be lost through attrition or retirement.

Learn more about the Asset Management Program (PDF).

Asset Almanac for Fiscal Year 2021 Now Available​

WAPA has published Data Driving Decisions (PDF)​​, its fiscal year 2021 almanac. The document provides an overview of WAPA assets by region and type of ​network equipment, asset condition data on critical transmission equipment and 10-year projections on asset investment, health and risk. ​​