Property owners in the private and public sectors need at all times to have real-time status of all their existing capital assets and what projects are being executed that will produce new capital assets when completed. Those property owners could include real estate developers, banks, retail chains, supermarkets, fast-food chains, education providers, and healthcare, among others. Those completed and operational assets will generate revenue for the capital project owner from leases with external and internal tenants. The capital project owner will incur expenses to maintain and operate those assets.
PMWeb is one of the Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) that has an Asset Management module that will be used to capture the details of all assets owned and/or controlled by the property owner. PMWeb allows capturing three types of assets. The first is the real estate capital assets like buildings, warehouses, schools, highways, fuel tanks, and pipelines. In addition, PMWeb allows capturing all equipment assets owned by the property owner. Those include fixed assets like air handling units, chillers, boilers, and escalators, and non-fixed assets such as trucks and buses, among other mobile and movable equipment assets. The third type of assets is spare parts and other assets stored at the capital project owner inventory locations.
Using the PMWeb assets location breakdown structure, assets are grouped into four levels. The first level is the location of the property owner’s real estate developments. At each location, there could be several buildings such as a shopping mall, commercial tower, residential tower, car park building, central plant, etc., and zones such as gardens and playgrounds. Each building could include floor levels such as the ground floor, first floor, second floor, etc. The fourth level will be spaces and apartments on each floor.
For example, assume that one of the real estate developments owned by the property owner is a residential compound in one of the neighborhoods in the country. The compound, which is a location, includes several residential and commercial buildings, a shopping mall, and public gardens with associated infrastructure. Buildings have levels for which the residential towers will include apartments, and the commercial towers will consist of offices.
All information relevant to each location, building, floor, and space will be captured using the PMWeb input form for each type of those asset. The information will include details on the asset GIS location, key stakeholders, gross and leasable areas, and barcode, among others will be captured. In addition, other information that includes the total development area and the total area that can be sold or leased, whether the space is vacant or rented, will be captured in those forms. Similar to other PMWeb modules, the specification tab can be used to add other user-defined fields to ensure capturing all needed information for each asset type in the desired grouping. In addition, the attachment tab can be used to upload documents such as land ownership documents, permits, drawings, and BIM models.
The second type of assets captured in PMWeb is fixed and movable or mobile equipment assets. Those assets can at assigned at any location level, as detailed above. For example, patrol cars for compound security could be assigned at the location level. On the other hand, equipment assets like air handling units could be located at a space location like a flat or an office. For equipment assets, the PMWeb form includes, in addition to the complete details of each asset, a cost worksheet tab to capture each asset’s cost and book value depending on the depreciation method used for the selected asset. PMWeb allows using the Straight line, Double-declining balance, and sum of years digits for the asset depreciation. The cost worksheet tab also captures the asset’s cost to own and operate.
For equipment assets, PMWeb also allows capturing the details of components and subcomponents of each asset. For example, the components of the Air Handling Unit (AHU) could include the fan, filter, power connection, and case, among many others. For each component or subcomponent, PMWeb allows capturing the details of component type, description, condition, condition reported date, last work order number used to fix this component or subcomponent, life remaining, service internal usage, and installed usage. The objective of capturing the components of each equipment asset is that those will need to be maintained using the PMWeb work order module.
For movable or non-fixed assets, PMWeb allows capturing the details of all planned and actual dates of those asset movements. For each asset, the user needs to drag and drop the asset from the current location to the destination location. If the movement plan was linked to a project schedule, the movement plan for each asset could be related to the relevant project schedule activity.
The third type of assets that will be captured in PMWeb is the inventory assets which could include spare parts required to maintain the different real estate assets including equipment assets. PMWeb allows the creation of multiple inventory locations to map all the property owner and developer locations. Those could also include third-party inventory locations used in storing the spare parts. At each inventory location, it is possible to define all sublocations, which could consist of the aisles included at the site. As for the spare parts assets, PMWeb allows capturing the spare part details such as condition status and condition date, total stocked, used, unusable, moved, and on-hand. In addition, the unit cost and unit of measure can be captured for each asset which will be the basis for calculating the extended cost. Further, manufacturer name, manufacturer number, serial number, and lot number, among others, can be captured for each asset.
Of course, the PMWeb business intelligence report writer can be used to create a different report on the captured assets in PMWeb, including a report to capture the details of all inventory assets at all locations. The report can be designed to display alerts for reordering inventory stock. For example, it will show which inventory stock is on track, within 5% of the reorder point, and which inventory stock went beyond the reorder point.
PMWeb asset search provides a central location for all assets, including locations, buildings, floors, spaces, and equipment. The search screen will differ depending on the asset category, as the selection criteria will vary depending on the attributes that will be relevant to each asset category. For the real estate locations, PMWeb allows displaying those locations on a google map which will be linked to the given GIS location.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM, is a Senior Project Management Consultant with over 35-year service record providing project management and controls services to over 100 projects with a total value of over US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education, and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping-Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication, and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in project management, including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for over six years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), an accredited Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), an Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE), and a Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Master’s in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation from George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – from Kuwait University, Kuwait, and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA, and London Business School, London, UK.