Information Technologies for Engineering Asset Management – Cultural and Technical Barriers

Engineering enterprises utilize a variety of technologies to manage the lifecycle of their critical assets. These technologies consist of operational as well as information technologies that aim to provide control of individual asset management processes as well as to create overall information enabled integrated view of the asset lifecycle management regime. However, implementation and adoption of these technologies is not a linear progression and raises many issues at both the macro and micro levels in the organization. It is for the same reason that utilization of same technologies produces variance in efficiency, results, and outputs among different organizations. In many instances, the consideration of organizational and cultural issues is more important than technological issues in determining a successful outcome for information technologies deployment. In fact, it has been stated that the primary cause for information technology’s failure to yield positive results has been organizational behavior problems. This paper reports the findings from a study conducted in Australian asset managing organizations, which highlights how these organizations have used information technologies for asset management. This paper highlights that value maximization from information technologies utilization has strong contextual and social underpinnings. Their optimal utilization, therefore, calls for understanding the context within which they are deployed, as well as the processes that influence and are influenced by their use.