Risk-Based Criticality for Network Utilities Asset Management

This paper describes the design and the implementation of a process of asset criticality analysis for distribution network services providers (DNSPs), also named network utilities. The proposed method is based on two points: 1) the elicitation of business-value factors and 2) the risk-based evaluation of assets, considering potential impacts of their failures on network value. Thus, it provides the capability to take maintenance management decision in terms of value and risk, considering the whole network under unique and homogeneous criteria. A hierarchy of assets ranked will come out of this process, which represents a fundamental result serving as input of the subsequent steps of the asset management process, including maintenance and renewal/reinvestments decisions. The proposed methodology is aligned with ISO 55000 family of standards approach, and therefore it can be understood as a practical asset management tool. Specific attention is paid to particular network utilities issues, characterizing assets in these companies, and the services that they provide (topology influence, reputational impact, operational losses, etc.). In addition to this, high requirements established by the service level agreements (SLAs), that are characteristics of network services contracts, make this method especially suitable in this application, considering in an overall way all these key aspects, providing great advantages for managing network utilities. In order to illustrate method applicability, an example extracted from a real telecommunication network use case is included.