EMSD has been aware of the importance of engineering asset management and its development trends for several years. Last year, the department sent a delegation to the World Congress on Engineering Asset Management held in Australia, with a view of engaging in exchange with professionals in the field and learning from their experience. Subsequent to that, an international consulting firm has been employed to carry out comprehensive research on a plan for replacing aged E&M facilities across government departments.

The research report is expected to propose internationally recognised framework, risk assessment parameters and quantitative measures for E&M asset management. This will not only allow EMSD client departments to have total control of the situation in a systematic way, but also forecast the possible consequences in case of incidents. At the same time, it will enable a detailed revamp plan, setting out the priority for replacement according to existing performance of individual equipment. A better allocation of limited resources will mean those more urgent projects will be moved up the agenda, thereby minimising the risk of breakdown incidents.

The report is scheduled to be released by the end of 2007. EMSD will then make careful consideration of all the proposals and develop a set of application models which will meet the actual requirements of client departments, ultimately helping them to enhance service quality for the public.