North Shore City Council    

"SPM have provided analytical support and advice on methodology to the councils negotiation process with the plaintiff developers of Neil and others. They have also participated in the development of the current cost allocation methodology that council applies in respect of development contributions. Council and SPM have worked closely to develop SPM Projects to cater for the cost allocation of the outcomes from assets that council must consider including the Sweeney methodology to allocate transitional outcomes. This model also addresses funding matters to calculate a schedule of charges. This work has enabled council to display how a key area of its Development Contributions Policy has been amended and enabled the relationship between policy and asset managers to be better managed and developed to provide a combined understanding of the outcomes of projects within councils asset Activities in anticipation of growth.

We have found SPM to be knowledgable in the area of Asset Management Planning and Development Contributions and the business of a council. They have displayed a willingness to explore, share information, debate and develop new ideas and solutions based on sound asset management and financial principles that often must be reflected pragmatically in the considerations that council must make."

Patrick Cleaver
Group Manager Development Initiatives
Strategy and Policy
North Shore City Council

Taupo District Council    

Taupo District Council has been working towards advanced asset management planning. In order to up our game in this area required a combination of sophisticated software, cost and ease of use. When determining which software to purchase these three items formed the basis of our project brief. Having looked at several applications, SPM Property was by far the best property asset management system we reviewed, currently in operation.

The essence to this has to be the thought process going on behind the development. Being led by property professionals gives an edge to other software in terms of the development approach, look and function. What has also struck us has been the flexibility of the application which in effect can be used for all assets and as such SPM Property is used for both parks and building asset management modelling.

Finally one of the major assets the software has are the people behind it, providing advice and support in its roll out and a real eye on the customer.

John Ridd
Policy and Asset Manager

Taupo District Council

Wellington City Housing    

In June 2006, in a jointly managed project with Housing New Zealand Corporation, the Council awarded a contract to SPM to assess the level of investment required to upgrade the Council’s housing stock of 2,300 homes up to an agreed standard, using a range of scenarios which were identified during the project.

The Housing Department was already using SPM’s open source Property system to support its asset planning operations, however, the value of the software was clearly proven on this project in view of the outcomes that have resulted.

The system is a web-based hosted application which has been designed using a PostgreSQL database; PHP web scripting and running on a free BSD operating system.

The system was used to collect sample data on a selected number of housing complexes; undertake comprehensive and sophisticated renewals analysis and generate what-if modelling to produce a range of expenditure models. From this, a range of strategic options for the future viability of the stock was produced, all generated from the software, which enabled the Council and Housing New Zealand Corporation to submit a detailed funding proposal to Government.

The value provided by SPM’s software application has been immense. In response to the funding submission, in February 2007, the Government announced it was providing $220 million to the Council to improve the housing stock. This announcement was widely publicised in the New Zealand press.

The level of analysis could not otherwise have been produced without using SPM’s open source software. The quantum of the investment was all down to the work that SPM completed on the stock assessment and the capability and power of its software.

Lito Magadia
Maintenance Contracts Manager
Wellington City Housing

Metrowater Ltd        

It is an essential aspect of Metrowater Ltd's financial planning to understand clearly the short, medium and long-term replacement liabilities of our reticulation assets.

This is managed through regular revaluations of all assets where detailed assessments of inventory and condition status provide the basis for determination of asset remaining lives. Metrowater has a programme of condition assessments which have provided valuable insight into the general status of all assets.

The next and critical step in the process has been to undertake deterioration modelling utilising SPM Networks© for prediction of expected and remaining lives and assessment of long-term renewal expenditure requirements. This model provides flexibility to analyse the assets group by group, type by type and criticality by criticality - enabling us to evaluate and determine drivers for deterioration and to gain confidence in our understanding of asset behaviour.

The model has enabled us to refine our asset replacement budgets, once considered to be of the order of $7M per annum to a manageable $1.5M per annum.

Brian Sharman

Chief Engineer and Innovation Manager

Metrowater Ltd

North Shore City Council

North Shore City Council has a long standing relationship with SPM across a range of activity groups. Council is an active user of SPM's asset and capital planning systems (SPM Property and SPM Projects respectively) and SPM has supported a range of Council's asset planning and asset improvement activities.

As Manager for Community Liaison the various teams in my portfolio area have partnered with SPM over a number of years. As a result of SPM's work and guidance Community Liaison is now able to more clearly determine the strategic linkages between our LTCCP Community Outcomes and asset management activity inherent in holistic asset management approaches. By working together I have been able to develop asset management experience and knowledge within my team so that we have the capability to provide a more integrated asset management service to our community that is linked with our community partnerships approach and programmes. SPM have also provided information and tools to help us more accurately scope, quantify, and justify additional expenditure necessary to deliver the range of services across our asset portfolio which includes housing for older people, cemeteries and all community facilities.

As an indication of its contribution SPM has undertaken the following range of specific tasks in conjunction with team members:

• Asset Management Plans reflecting both council's unique circumstance and industry best practice.
• Implemented information management programmes that have included property condition surveys and data maintenance procedures.
• Determined levels of service standards using the quality standards mechanism to provide a direct linkage between Community Outcomes and planned capital expenditure.
• Worked with Council's major facility partners to deliver gap analysis reports and support improved asset management planning within these facilities.

Lisa Tocker
Manager for Community Liaison
North Shore City Council