Speaking

Columbus Water and Power (CWP) serves 1.4 million water, wastewater, stormwater and power customers in central Ohio. The department’s decision to re-centralize its asset management function and responsibilities was the result of several challenges putting a significant, unexpected strain on CWP resources. Unprecedented capital investment is needed, projects must be carefully prioritized and maintenance and reliability practice advancements are needed to get the most out of existing assets as cost-effectively as possible. At the same time, the department recognized the importance of establishing consistent asset management practices across all utility divisions to better support long-term planning, improve decision-making and maximize the value of its infrastructure investments.

CWP hired a consulting team in 2025 to assess existing practices and develop an asset management (AM) roadmap. The assessment included a review of existing AM documentation as well as interviews with 14 distinct groups of staff covering all four utility divisions and across all disciplines. This collaborative assessment process provided valuable insight into current practices, organizational strengths and opportunities for improvement, as well as the challenges faced by staff responsible for planning, operating, maintaining and managing utility assets.

The result of the work and subsequent analysis included an AM roadmap with over two dozen improvement initiatives ranging from recommendations for a centralized AM staff to urgent initiatives, including tweaking and documenting the asset definition, asset naming standards, work order work types and work priorities and supporting the development of a comprehensive asset onboarding process prior to taking ownership of capital assets. In addition, initiatives covered establishing a formal condition assessment framework for facility assets, a criticality framework for all assets and risk frameworks to incorporate advancements in AI and condition assessment technologies, including predictive maintenance tools. Preventive maintenance optimization has been a significant implementation that has led to early success in right-sizing the maintenance strategy, leading to improved asset reliability, extended asset life and more effective use of maintenance resources.

This presentation will cover the assessment phase, recommended improvements, early implementation progress and plans for future AM initiatives. The presentation will also discuss lessons learned throughout the assessment process, the importance of stakeholder engagement in developing an enterprise-wide roadmap and how CWP prioritized initiatives to achieve early successes while laying the foundation for a sustainable asset management program. Attendees will gain practical insights into how a structured assessment and roadmap can help utilities strengthen governance, improve consistency and better align people, processes, data and technology to support informed asset management decisions.