11 October 2018 - Fourteen South African staff members of global engineering and infrastructure advisory company Aurecon have passed the international CAMA (Certified Asset Management Assessor) examination to date.

This achievement puts Aurecon’s Asset Management Unit in the ideal position to ensure that clients’ assets, and the value realised from them, are able to deliver what they were intended to do.

Aurecon Principal: Asset Management, Francois Joubert, says both public and private asset owners are facing the ever-increasing challenge of balancing existing service levels, asset performance, risk and expenditure over their asset life cycles.

“With significant industry experience in all of these life cycle phases, Aurecon’s team of asset management specialists understand the challenges faced by asset owners. The number of Aurecon staff members now being qualified as Asset Management Assessors enables us to provide rapid, innovative solutions in the planning, construction, preservation and use of assets to help clients extract optimum value and achieve optimal life cycle cost,” continues Joubert.

The World Partners in Asset Management (WPiAM) developed this global certification based on internationally recognised standards and best practices in asset management. As part of the professionalisation of asset management within Aurecon, the Asset Management Unit has embraced the CAMA examination as a key development milestone for Aurecon’s asset management staff. Besides engineers and designers, other Aurecon staff members including a chartered accountant passed the CAMA examination.

“A broad range of expertise is needed to give clients a holistic asset management solution. Not only does the CAMA certification broaden our staff’s career paths, but it helps us deliver projects where each aspect of an asset management programme is carefully considered by a range of professionals,” says Joubert.

Where is South Africa in terms of asset management?

Physical asset management has become an accepted profession in South Africa with the Southern African Asset Management Association (SAAMA) awarding the first CSAM (Certified Senior Practitioner in Asset Management) designations earlier in 2018.

“CSAM is the culmination of a few years of rapid development in asset management. While the principles underlying physical asset management have been around for decades, the publication of PAS 55 (a British Publicly Available Specification) in 2004 formally established asset management as a distinct discipline,” explains Joubert.

PAS 55 was updated in 2008 and provided the basis for the ISO55001 Standard, launched in January 2014. These documents are supplemented by the “Asset Management Landscape”, published by the Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management.

With the emergence of globally-recognised best practice, it became necessary to introduce globally-recognised standards for the certification of asset managers, and WPiAM consequently developed the CAMA examination. CAMA has been adopted by national asset management associations around the world, including SAAMA, which requires that an individual passes the CAMA examination as one of the requirements for obtaining the CSAM designation.

“As part of the professionalisation of asset management within Aurecon, we have embraced the CAMA examination as a key development milestone for our asset management staff. Our CAMA certified staff members are located in a number of Aurecon offices across South Africa, making us ideally placed to support our partners and clients with asset management improvements,” says Joubert.

“Asset management means different things to different clients. Whether we’re reducing a mine’s environmental impact while ensuring financial returns to shareholders, or helping a municipality improve service delivery at an affordable cost while creating jobs, clients can rest assured that the advice and recommendations they receive will align with global leading practice. Aurecon’s asset management knowledge and competency has set us apart from our competition in the engineering and infrastructure advisory landscape,” concludes Joubert.