Governance of IT for Engineering Asset Management

Engineering enterprises traditionally adopt a technology centered approach to asset lifecycle management, where technical aspects of asset configuration, design, and operation command most resources and are considered first in their planning and design stage. On the other hand, asset lifecycle support infrastructure like information technologies to support asset lifecycle, lifecycle processes maturity, and other organizational factors are considered relatively late in the process and sometimes only after the assets are operational. In this way, these enterprises mature technologically along the continuum of standalone technologies to integrated systems, and in so doing aim to achieve maturity of processes enabled by these technologies, and the skills associated with their operation. However, information technologies influence and are influenced by the context of their implementation and have a direct relationship with organizational evolution. Therefore, the success of information technologies implementation for asset lifecycle management depends on their alignment with business processes. This paper provides a framework for governance of information technologies utilized for asset lifecycle management. It concludes that information technologies should not be taken as technical constructs, these are at the core of strategic alignment, value delivery, resource management, and risk management; which calls for need to understand and govern the overall information technology architecture of the organization.