The asset management paradigm has emerged over the past decade within the American infrastructure community in response to rising public expectations, increased competitive pressures, new accounting standards and federal funding devolution. The challenges presented by this emerging paradigm are especially acute within the infrastructure programming process where current research and practice deters movement toward a more complete, and optimum, public sector capital programming posture.
This research project aims to drive the infrastructure community toward a more ideal posture by developing new decision support systems that encourage comprehensive and transparent decision-making and deploying professionals who are prepared for 21st century infrastructure management. Specific research objectives are to: (1) develop a flexible performance modeling method under conditions of uncertainty and limited data, (2) apply and validate a general approach to evaluate alternative investment programs at the portfolio level and (3) establish heuristics and identify best procurement practices to support the use of multiple project delivery methods during the capital development lifecycle. Concepts and methods from the decision sciences provide the intellectual substance necessary to accomplish the first two research objectives while detailed case study work supports the third objective. In addition, the plan capitalizes upon the involvement of two collaborative public sector partners who will contribute the realistic context, input and feedback necessary to insure that the proposed tools are applicable to authentic public sector challenges.
The corresponding education plan will prime civil engineers for the infrastructure management challenges ahead by: (1) improving a progressive sequence of infrastructure management courses, (2) facilitating problem-focused and team-based learning and (3) developing new educational materials. This work will create specific educational products including web-based, multimedia curriculum modules for middle school students and a continuing education tutorial for industry practitioners.
This CAREER development program is noteworthy for its potential contributions to the asset management paradigm. Through research aimed at producing tested decision support systems and education targeted at developing a new generation of infrastructure managers, this work will fundamentally improve the decisions that impact the "fitness" of our built environment. Moreover, the decision support tools that will result are applicable to any economic sector/enterprise where large collections of real assets are common. Ultimately, this endeavor will assist in attacking the perpetual challenge of maintaining, restoring, modernizing and expanding our infrastructure base to meet social and economic expectations.
