The Impact of Using Criticality and Risk Analysis on the Organizations Asset Management

The role of asset management (AM( as a strategic enabler contributing to the current competitive business landscape is rapidly evolving. The emergence of the AM professional has transitioned the maintenance engineer from a role whose primary responsibility is repair to that of a strategic value enhancer. This means AM professionals are now tasked with delivering strategic asset value contributions in alignment with their organization’s overall business objectives. the discipline of AM has evolved rapidly in the last few years. Unfortunately, some areas of the AM BOK have not kept up with this frenetic pace of change. A notable example is criticality and its continued use and misuse throughout literature. The confusion surrounding criticality is largely due to its synonymous use with risk, as well as the fact that both terms have an identical mathematical expression. This paper discusses the criticality for asset management professionals and points to the need to adopt a risk-based approach. Risk management is also reviewed in international standards and finally a risk-based approach is presented as a solution.