Senior management in Local Government is today under increasing pressure to meet not only functional outcomes but to comply with occupational health and safety, legislative and environmental issues. This must be achieved in a commercially viable manner, with no surprises to executive managers, so as to satisfy all stakeholders – State and Federal Governments and their agencies, as well as ratepayers and customers.
This trend has shifted the asset management focus to funding of services and facilities that are sustainable in the long term.
This shift calls for a more rational approach to capital acquisition and renewal and the adoption of a risk based approach to asset management and the emerging discipline of business driven maintenance.
Recognising this, the new owners of the popular asset and maintenance management solution Mainpac have made significant enhancements.
“Our changes recognise the increasing emphasis that Councils are placing on their assets as typified by the creation of positions for asset managers, focusing on accounting standard AAS27,” said Mainpac’s Sales and Marketing Manager, Ray Quigley.
Mainpac has introduced the capability to analyse the contribution and plan the lifecycle of a Local Government’s total assets.
This is supported by a balanced scorecard capability that compares maintenance outcomes across the organisation, maps performance changes and highlights opportunities to improve the contribution of Council assets to the bottom line.
One Council which believes Mainpac is moving in the right direction as regards asset management is Blue Mountains City Council.
“We want to put a solid foundation in place for asset management and in doing so eliminate a plethora of small applications,” said Manager Financial and Risk Management, Paul Bennett, who is also secretary of the Local Government Finance Professionals Association.
“From what I have seen Mainpac’s new asset module incorporates the functionality we are aiming for.”
Reflecting its increasingly asset centric focus, Council now has a new position focusing on asset management and lifecycle costing.
“Trades, services and other Council staff who use Mainpac for maintenance management have been extremely positive about the information system since it was installed two years ago” Paul Bennett said.
For further information contact Ray Quigley, telephone 0418 188 333 or visit www.mainpac.com.au.
* Copy supplied by Mainpac
