The Asset Management Global Seminar, organised by UIC and SNCF, was held in Paris at UIC Headquarters on 3 and 4 October bringing together railway asset managers, manufacturers and academics. This seminar gave participants the opportunity to debate at high-level the issue of Asset Management with managers from Europe and overseas, representatives of IAM (Institution of Asset Management) as well as managers from other sectors.

With the liberalisation of railways in Europe and in the context of this financial crisis, railways need to introduce new methodology on managing their physical assets, the professional asset management being the answer for merging all the activities of the company.

According to the ISO 55000 definition, Asset Management is defined by the coordinated activities of an organisation to realise values from assets.
Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director-General, opened the seminar detailing the assets of UIC. Among them:

• UIC values serving the entire community of railways
• Its neutrality
• Respecting the intellectual property of its Members included in the 800 UIC Leaflets produced,
• Its capacity to work in a cooperative way to serve its Members in a transparent approach

Asset Management is a very complex activity and UIC is the one railway community where all the railway actors can work in synergy. The needs for Asset Management are so commonly shared in the different railways that it is in the best interest for every railway to work together.
Among the benefits of Asset Management at UIC on behalf of the railway community, we can note:

• Multi-disciplinary: Asset Management crosses departmental and discipline boundaries
• Systematic: rigorously applied in a structured management system
• Systems-oriented: looking at assets in their systems context
• Risk-based: incorporating risk appropriately into all decision-making
• Optimal: seeking the best compromise between conflicting objectives, such as costs versus performance, versus risks, and short-term versus long-term impacts
• Sustainable: plans must deliver optimal asset life cycle value, and long term consequences
• Integrated: at the heart of good Asset Management lies the need to be joined-up. The system needs to work as a whole – and more than just the ‘sum of the parts’

UIC, developing a railway system vision, can be the answer to its members for Asset Management coordinated implementation approach.

Mr Vincent Maumy, Director Asset Management, SNCF, explained the basis of the need for Asset Management. The internal benefit for Asset Management is to improve a long-term vision of needs of maintenance track by track. And in the near context of reorganisation of the new French Infrastructure Manager will be based on the professional asset management principles, showing that they are currently and concretely set up in several railway companies.

Mr Pierre Messulam, Strategy Director of SNCF, explained the main challenges that SNCF will need to face on optimally managing their assets.

A real added value of this seminar was given by three representatives of Institution of Asset Management who explained to participants the challenges of introducing the ISO 55000 in spring 2014.

During the seminar participants had very fruitful exchanges. Some of the participants attended a technical visit of the HSL2 operating centre and the operating centre and technical facilities of Paris Montparnasse.