WATER INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MANAGEMENT DECISIONS, MAINLY IN MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT IN TRANSITIONAL COUNTRIES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE

Background: There are growing concerns that drinking water and wastewater infrastructure is at risk without collaborative effort to improve the management of key assets such as pipelines; treatment plants other facilities and significant investment in maintaining, rehabilitating and replacing these assets. Poor infrastructure asset management has led to leakages in the pipe network and aging infrastructure. Additionally, these issues have contributed to the high share of non-revenue water given at a conservative figure of 40 per-cent in National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC annual report, 2010) Kampala, Uganda.

Aim: The article aims at evaluating the aspects of water asset management decisions supported by information systems, importance of asset management among small to medium water and sanitation utilities in transitional countries, asset management specifications, benefits of asset management, asset management implementation, key influencing factors in asset management, decision support systems for asset management and suggest strategies to address factors influencing asset management challenges.

Methods: The background literature review on water asset management decisions support by information systems among small to medium sized water and sanitation utilities in transitional countries was conducted on several journal articles. Peer-reviewed articles in recent journals were analyzed to identify the aspects of water infrastructure asset management decisions supported by information systems, importance of asset management among small to medium water and sanitation utilities in transitional countries, asset management specifications, benefits of asset management, asset management implementation, factors influencing asset management implementation, decision support systems for asset management and the proposed strategies to address implementation challenges thereof.

Results and Conclusion: Whereas the current guidelines like PAS 55 and ISO 55000 provide standards on asset management, they are lacking in specifics. They do not address themselves on the “how to” of asset management. Water companies are more focused on engineering solutions while putting little emphasis on services. Businesses should focus more on services rather than engineering in order to reduce exposure to risk, operating costs and capital spending. This article has added to the body of existing literature on decision making in water infrastructure asset management, particularly maintenance management among small to medium water and sanitation utilities in transitional countries. As such small to medium sized water and sanitation utilities can use the findings of this article to design asset management decision policy frameworks and provide guidelines on asset management implementation in order to reduce NRW, operational costs, and capital spending and risks.