Asset Maturity and Gap Review: Building Asset Management Ahead of First Production

Executive Summary

An ASX listed energy company developing a new gas resource was preparing to move from exploration into production. It had deep technical expertise in its field. What it needed was a clear view of where its asset management stood, and what to build next, before the asset base began to grow.

SAS-AM delivered a full maturity and gap review against all 40 subjects of the GFMAM Asset Management Landscape, scored on the IAM maturity scale. In about five weeks the company had a measurable baseline, a benchmark against the resources sector, and a three phase roadmap that tied asset management capability to its own stages of growth.

The Challenge

Building an asset management system is easier before production starts than after. Once wells, pipelines and facilities are running, every gap shows up as downtime, cost or risk.

The company's leadership saw that a sound asset management system would underpin reliable production, help it meet safety and environmental obligations, and give it the information to make good investment decisions as it scaled.

The trick was sizing it right. A growing organisation's needs today are different from what they will be in five years. Build too little and it reacts to every problem. Build too much, too early, and it creates duplication and paperwork nobody follows.

The company needed three things from the review:

1. An honest, evidence based view of current asset management maturity
2. A sense of how that compared with established players in the resources sector
3. A practical plan for what to build, and when, as the business grew

The Approach

SAS-AM ran the review as a short, focused sprint, largely remote. The work was led by two Certified Asset Management Assessors, with one assessor delivering the review and the second providing oversight, quality control and assurance.

Assess against a recognised framework. Every one of the 40 subjects across the seven GFMAM subject groups was assessed, from context and governance through to data, delivery and value realisation. Each subject was scored against the IAM maturity scale so the results could be measured and repeated.

Go to the evidence. The review combined interviews with a detailed desktop review of more than 40 internal and publicly available documents. The team also walked through the company's working systems with the people who use them.

Speak the organisation's language. The assessment was mapped back to the company's own corporate governance principles. This meant the recommendations read as a way of delivering commitments the board had already made, not as a separate asset management agenda.

Build on what is already there. Some practices, such as those around asset operations, were expected to exist already. The review looked for them first, so the plan could reuse good practice rather than create it again.

Benchmark, then plan. Results were compared against a resources sector cohort, drawing on SAS-AM's benchmarking approach, which refines its benchmark data with each new assessment. The team then translated the gaps into a future state and a phased implementation roadmap.

The Outcomes

• A measurable baseline. Maturity was defined overall and for each of the 40 subjects, giving the company a starting point to improve from and evidence to show regulators and investors that it is a learning organisation.
• A clear view of where to focus. The sector benchmark showed which subjects sat furthest from the resources sector cohort, so effort could go where the gap mattered most.
• A short list of priority decisions. The review set out the strategic decisions to make first, covering asset management resourcing, operational readiness, management philosophy, performance definitions, data and asset objectives.
• A roadmap tied to growth. A three phase plan (developing, establishing competency, optimising) set a target maturity for each phase, aligned to the company's operating stages, with a path toward ISO 55001 readiness.
• One system, not several. The recommended direction was to bring asset management into a single, right sized integrated management system, rather than adding another standalone system alongside the ones already in development.
• Detail for the people doing the work. A separate technical report gave subject by subject comments and recommended actions.

The engagement started in early October and the final report was issued in early November. The client contact rated the work 10 out of 10 for likelihood to recommend.

"Highly engaged professional team."

Client feedback, asset maturity and gap review

What We Learned

1. Timing matters. A maturity review before production lets an organisation design its asset management system rather than retrofit it.
2. Right sized beats complete. The goal is the right level of maturity for the next stage of growth, not the highest score on every subject at once.
3. Anchor to existing commitments. Linking findings to the organisation's own governance principles made the case for action far easier to accept.
4. Integrate, don't duplicate. Folding asset management into the management systems already being built avoids the waste of running several in parallel.

Ready to Find Out Where Your Asset Management Stands?

SAS-AM is one of only four Australian owned IAM Endorsed Assessors, endorsed for both gap analysis and ISO 55001 certification. We deliver GFMAM maturity and gap reviews across transport, water and resources. Contact us to talk through a review sized to your organisation and its next stage of growth.

Project details: Resources & Minerals · Energy · Asset management maturity and gap review against the GFMAM Landscape (40 subjects, IAM maturity scale), sector benchmark and phased implementation roadmap, delivered over about five weeks.