Purpose: Engineering knowledge continuity is crucial for the life cycle management of long-lived and complex assets, such as nuclear plants, locks and storm surge barriers. At the storm surge barriers in the Netherlands, engineering knowledge continuity is not yet fully assured, despite long-standing efforts. This study aims to explore the relationship between system characteristics, the organizational demarcation of maintenance and operation and the challenges in achieving engineering knowledge continuity and provides suggestions for improvement of theory and policy. Design/methodology/approach: Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals from various backgrounds in construction, engineering and asset management of the Dutch storm surge barriers, augmented with visits to barriers and barrier teams. A thematic analysis was used to identify and describe the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. We reviewed knowledge management policy documents and asset management consultancy reports to validate the findings. Additionally, we engaged in frequent interactions with professionals at the barriers. We achieved saturation and validation once no new issues were raised during these discussions. Findings: The thematic analysis developed multiple themes describing the challenges to engineering continuity, their origins and potential solutions. The key findings are that expert engineers are critically important to deal with redesigns induced by obsolescence. Moreover, due to barrier uniqueness, long redesign cycles and reliability requirements, conventional knowledge continuity tools are insufficient to enable new engineers to reach expert level. Finally, the thematic analysis shows that, in some cases, outsourcing should be reduced to facilitate internal learning. Originality/value: The study introduces the application of the knowledge-based view of the firm and the concept of requisite knowledge redundancy to the long-term management of complex assets. It calls for more attention to long gaps in the use of unique knowledge and the effect on knowledge continuity.

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Due to increasing flood risks, storm surge barriers become crucial for the socioeconomic continuity of coastal areas. They provide flood protection, especially against extreme events, by operating under specific circumstances. This imposes high-performance requirements for storm surge barriers and their asset management during their lifetime and emphasises the role and criticality of their asset management. For this purpose, the research investigates asset management for storm surge barriers by focusing on the approach in the Netherlands and analysing it relative to distinctive characteristics of storm surge barriers. Based on thematic analysis, the study unfolds that barriers’ characteristics: (1) clarify the vital motives for the asset management approach, (2) confront the approach with challenging conditions, resulting in further maturation of the approach, and (3) require ongoing support from the approach, enforcing continuous improvement and resilience of the asset management approach. These findings demonstrate the strong influence of barriers’ characteristics on their asset management approach and provide a fundamental understanding of asset management for storm surge barriers. This supports flood defence authorities in the development and improvement of asset management for storm surge barriers and underpins associated complexities for future designs and research. Furthermore, the study assists in tailoring approaches for other assets.

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The infrastructure we build is increasingly complicated and automated. After it is designed and constructed, it needs to be maintained and updated to sustain its functioning for far longer than the careers of its designers and builders. Continuity of engineering knowledge is necessary to make future updates and adapt to changing demands, conditions and technology in a safe and reliable manner. The Dutch storm surge barriers protect the low-lying hinterlands from flooding during extreme weather events. Each of the six barriers managed by the Directorate General of Public Works (Rijkswaterstaat) was designed at a different time, to different requirements, and using different types of contracts. This has resulted in six unique structures, some of which use systems and components found nowhere else. In 1997, the Maeslant Storm Surge Barrier was completed, pioneering the use of Design and Construct contracts for major hydraulic structures. Experience with maintaining this hallmark structure through its first decades of operation provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the effect of contracting- and design choices. Little work has been done to evaluate different contract types on the basis of delivering long-term maintainability and reducing the knowledge continuity challenge. This study views the Maeslant Barrier in the context of the earlier storm surge barriers with regard to facilitating knowledge continuity through design. It was found that the interdependent behaviour of subsystems in a high-reliability structure results in a notable increase in engineering complexity, especially in the control systems, increasing the challenge of achieving knowledge continuity. Examining the knowledge flows in a design-and-construct contract shows several advantages, but also that it does not naturally facilitate attention to important but less obvious aspects of maintainability, such as those related to knowledge continuity.

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Over the course of the last century, storm surge barriers have been built in several countries and proven to be successful in preventing flooding. However, the operation, reliability, and remaining life of these structures have come under increased pressure due to changing demands, intensified utilisation, and climate change. Yet, there is relatively little known about how these factors affect the remaining life of storm surge barriers. To address this issue, a framework is presented to assess the impacts of external drivers on the remaining life in a systematic manner. The framework considers both the technical state and functional performance and uses scenarios to evaluate the impact of external drivers. The application of the framework is demonstrated for the Hollandsche IJssel barrier (the Netherlands). The results indicate that sea level rise (SLR) is the dominant physical driver. Even in moderate SLR scenarios, the lifespan of the barrier may end in the 2040s if the functional performance with respect to flood protection and navigation cannot be improved. Ultimately, the study demonstrates how the remaining life of storm surge barriers could be assessed systematically and the impact of external drivers on the remaining life could be evaluated.@en

Due to climate change, the risk of flooding is increasing with potentially severe consequences on highly populated and economically developed coastal zones. Storm surge barriers protect against such events with the critical task of closing during extreme weather conditions to prohibit the propagation of water. This highlights the importance of maintaining the high reliability of these structures and the challenge to reach this goal for rarely operated and unique infrastructures. To deal with this challenge, the study creates a foundation to set an asset management approach for storm surge barriers or assets with similar characteristics. This is done by studying the case of The Netherlands with the aim to [1] describe the asset management approach, [2] identify key features of the approach, [3] investigate the connection between these features and the characteristics of the barriers, and [4] conclude the influence of the characteristics on the establishment of an asset management approach.@en

Probabilistisch ramen van investeringsprojecten neemt onzekerheden over volumes van materialen en prijzen mee in de berekening. Dit geeft besluitvormers inzicht in de spreiding rond verwachte projectkosten en -baten. In dit artikel bespreken we de ontwikkelingen van probabilistisch ramen en de opschaling van projectkosten naar levensduurkosten. Dit opschalen houdt geen rekening met prijs(de)escalatie. Een andere kansverdeling voor prijsontwikkelingen, afgeleid van prijsindices, past beter bij hoe we omgaan met prijsfluctuaties en leidt tot andere uitkomsten. @en

Veel publieke organisaties in Nederland rekenen bij contante waarde berekeningen met een maatschappelijke discontovoet. Door de lage discontovoet ontstaat een methodisch probleem bij contante waarde berekening over de gebruikelijke periode van 100 jaar. In dit artikel stellen we drie rekenmethoden voor om tot een evenredige vergelijking te komen bij lage discontovoeten. De aanpak is ook geldig voor het vergelijken van alternatieven met een verschillende levensduur.@en

The port of Rotterdam is the largest seaport in Europe. To maintain its position, the harbor will have to anticipate global transitions such as transferring to sustainable energy. Hydrogen is seen as a promising energy carrier; however, future demand is uncertain. The current research investigates decision making under uncertainty and values flexibility. Compound real options analysis is applied to optimize the time-variant expansion strategies for a hydrogen pipe network. The trade-off between early investments and missed revenues when not investing in time determines the optimized expansion strategy. Moreover, the real options approach also provides the levelized unit price for hydrogen distribution, to cover the life cycle costs of the optimal expansion strategy. Finally, this real options approach offers flexibility to a decision maker as it allows for enhancing future decisions. The academic contribution of this research is a distinct perspective on a compound real options approach where the optimal strategic path is the key result of interest. This in contrast to other real options applications in the literature which focus on option value, exchange with limiting the options or do not visualize a strategic path. Moreover, this research demonstrates how stepwise expansion and decision making under uncertainty facilitate transitions such as the transition toward clean energy.@en

Ageing infrastructures and shortage of financing induce the need for optimising public infrastructure replacements. From an economic perspective, classical net present value comparison is traditionally the method of choice to decide on investments and replacements. The current research observes that typical infrastructure related features make the classical net present value comparison less suitable in its application for optimising infrastructure replacements. Especially the low discount rate of public sector organisations, price increases and price uncertainty contribute to this phenomenon in which the application of classical net present value comparison leads to suboptimal timing and costs. This observation led to the development of six dedicated replacement optimisation models for common types of infrastructure replacement challenges. A decision support guideline is provided to assist in selecting an appropriate model based on the sequence of intervention strategies, the development of forecasted cash flows and whether uncertainty is involved. The quantitative replacement optimisation models function as blueprints for similar challenges and support a wider decision-making context.@en

In the Netherlands, probabilistic life cycle cash flow forecasting for infrastructures has gained attention in the past decennium. Frequencies, volume and unit prices of life cycle activities are treated as uncertainty variables for which an expert-based triangular distribution is assumed. The current research observes the absence of time-variant variables typical for infrastructure life cycles among which price (de-)escalation. Moreover, previous research has shown that price (de-)escalation and its uncertainty should not be ignored as it may lead to over or underestimation of costs, especially for public sector organisations which use low discount rates. For that reason, the current research has searched for a more data-driven approach to include price (de-)escalation and its uncertainty by adopting a price forecasting method from the financial domain, a Geometric Brownian Motion. The uncertainty variables drift and volatility are obtained from publicly available price indices. This approach is easily included in the current practice for probabilistic cost forecasting which is demonstrated on a case study. The case study shows that ignoring price increases may lead to an underestimation of total discounted costs of 13%. From an academic perspective, the current research advocates inclusion of price uncertainty in multi-objective optimisation modelling of infrastructure life cycle activities.@en

Infrastructure maintenance and replacement decisions are subject to uncertainties such as regular asset degradation, structural failure, and price uncertainty. In the engineering domain, Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) typically focus on uncertainties regarding asset degradation and structural failure. While the literature in the engineering domain stresses the importance of addressing price uncertainties, it does not substantiate the observations of such uncertainties through optimization modeling. By contrast, real option analyses (ROAs) that originate from the financial domain address price uncertainties but generally disregard asset degradation and structural failure. Accordingly, this piece of current research brings both domains closer together and proposes an optimization approach that incorporates the flexibility to choose between multiple successive intervention strategies, regular asset degradation, structural failure and multiple price uncertainties. A practical result of the current research is a realistic approach to optimization modeling in which state space reduction is achieved by combining prices into portfolios. The current research obtains transition probabilities from existing price data. This approach is demonstrated using a case study of a water authority in the Netherlands and confirms the premise that price fluctuations may influence short-term maintenance and replacement decisions.@en

Managerial flexibility in infrastructure investment and replacement decisions adds value. Real options analysis (ROA) captures this value under uncertain market prices. The concept of ROA is that future unfavourable payoffs can be deferred as soon as more information about market prices becomes available. The popularity of ROA is seen in a growing number of case studies on real assets. Despite its increasing popularity, ROA has not gained a foothold in public infrastructure decision making. One of the difficulties in the application of ROA is the required estimation of market variables. To avoid this, a simplified but not correct version of ROA is easily applied, referred to as a Decision Tree Approach (DTA) to ROA. Another difficulty is that infrastructure assets are subject to other types of uncertainties, defined here as asset uncertainties. This study investigates the value of managerial flexibility in a public infrastructure replacement decision. The uncertainty drivers are the strength of a bridge, political decisions regarding traffic flow and the price development of construction costs. Three valuation approaches are compared: DTA, ROA and the DT approach to ROA. Although it is complex, ROA certainly adds value in public infrastructure decision making when market price uncertainty is prevalent. However, in the absence of reasonable estimates of market variables, the DT approach to ROA is the best alternative. In the absence of market price uncertainties, ROA should be avoided DTA is to be preferred.

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The optimal moment at which maintenance activities should be performed on structures with long service-life to guarantee the required quality of service is hard to define, due to uncertainties in their deterioration processes. Most of the developed methods and concepts use historical data to predict the deterioration process with deterministic values as a result. Some researchers recognise that probabilistic deterioration models are required for life-cycle models but in practice, however, historical data are often scarce. Moreover, the available data often only inform about a short period of time, while maintenance strategies, technologies, materials and external circumstances change over time. Therefore, the required probabilistic deterioration models cannot be retrieved and remain unproven in life-cycle modelling so far. Hence, this article introduces an expert judgement based Condition Over Time Assessment method that quantifies the uncertainty regarding the period that is required for structural assets to deteriorate to a given condition. The proposed method utilises Cooke’s classical model, which makes use of knowledge and experience of experts, who are weighed according to their performance in judging uncertainty, to assess this period. A bridge-based experiment shows that the proposed method has the potential to provide a means to effectively plan maintenance.@en

Reliability-based life cycle costing analysis (LCCA) supports optimized decisions on capital and operational expenditures for engineering asset management. In addition, it allows investigation of the impact of maintenance decisions on designing the service life of assets. The application of reliability-based LCCA in railway practice is challenging, as there is limited research with regard to integrating maintenance strategies, reliability and costs especially for embedded rail systems. Therefore, in this research, an LCCA model for these embedded rail system assets has been developed, which shows the optimum between the actual reliability profile, financial parameters and maintenance policies for specific variable conditions. This model incorporates both the uncertainties associated with degradation and maintenance strategies which have been integrated into a discounted age replacement model. This model facilitates a better understanding about the interaction among life cycle cost, rail degradation and maintenance strategies for a set of variable conditions. The output supports decision making on rail replacement and/or maintenance engineering. The model is demonstrated in a case study and validated with available (real) failure data from Dutch railroad service contractors. The potential of the applicability to ballasted tracks is also demonstrated.@en

Life cycle costing analysis for public infrastructure assets is not a straight forward exercise and may be sensitive to input data and calculation approaches. In general alternatives are compared on net present value (NPV) of life cycle costs (LCC) over a bounded calculation horizon. However, alternatives may differ in life cycle characteristics. Issues to address include the chosen calculation horizons, the truncation method for the end of horizon cash flows, the discount rates and inflation rates. This study investigates the deviations of NPV calculations with horizons of 100, 200 and 300 years with an NPV calculation over an infinite time hori-zon. Three public infrastructure asset case studies with their specific LCC characteristics are considered: a bridge, a high way and a dike revetment. A sensitivity analysis for the discount rate and differential inflation is performed. This study develops generic guidelines for approximation errors as a consequence of a premature truncation of cash flows in public infrastructure LCC calculations.@en

Ageing public infrastructure assets necessitate economic replacement analysis. A common replacement problem concerns an existing asset challenged by a replacement option. Classic techniques obtained from the domain of engineering economics are the mainstream approach to replacement optimization in practice. However, the validity of these classic techniques is built on the assumption that life cycle cash flows of a replacement option are repetitive. Differential inflation undermines this assumption and therefore more advanced replacement optimization techniques are required under these circumstances. These techniques are found in the domain of operations research and require linear or dynamic programming (LP/DP). Since LP/DP techniques are complex and time-consuming, the current study develops an alternative model for replacement optimizations under differential inflation. This approach builds on the classic capitalized equivalent replacement technique. The alternative model is validated by comparison with a DP model showing to be equally accurate for a case with characteristics that apply to many infrastructure assets.@en

Water treatment plants (WTPs) are characterised as complex configurations of repairable and deteriorating components. Previous studies have mainly focused on the average or steady-state availability of such systems while ignoring inherent characteristics like degradation. The current research proposes a two-level hierarchical model for long-term availability analysis of WTPs. To do so, at the component level, a condition-based technique (semi-Markov) or a failure-based technique (non-homogeneous Poisson process) is proposed based on the type and amount of available data while at the system level a reliability block diagram can be used to combine the component-level availabilities. The application of the methodology has been demonstrated on a real case study in the Netherlands.@en

In the next decades, many public infrastructure assets will reach the end of their life that they were originally designed for. Replacement costs are high, and therefore increasing effort is put into lifetime-extending maintenance, including major overhauls and renovations. A key question is whether the investments in lifetime-extending maintenance justify the postponement of a full replacement. This question becomes more complicated when future life cycle cash flows are non-repeatable. Differential inflation and technological change, including multiple intervention strategies to maintain a desired functionality, cause such non-repeatability. In this case, classic replacement analysis techniques will not suffice in answering this question. Literature demonstrates that case-specific modelling with dynamic or linear programming techniques is required to find economic optimisation. However, such literature primarily addresses replacement interval optimisation of new investments within relative short time horizons, whereas the current research develops a nested dynamic programming (DP) approach for typical ageing infrastructure assets over long service life periods. The model can deal with multiple and various successive intervention strategies and addresses differential inflation and age-related cost increases. Finally, it is shown in an infrastructure case study that this DP approach leads to a better decision in comparison to the application of classical replacement techniques.@en

LCC analyses (LCCA) and discounting calculations are applied by public sector organizations in the Netherlands. Still numerous misunderstandings can be recognized. An overview is given of some common misunderstandings found in Life Cycle Costing Analyses. Issues relating to public assets are: the absence of residual value, long life cycles, high investment costs, long operation and maintenance expenditures and a low discount rate. All these issues make a careful estimation of life cycles and input parameters more important than most governments and local authorities realize. Six suggestions to improve LCC analyses of public assets are given.@en

Civil infrastructure assets, such as roads, locks, bridges, treatment plants and storm surge barriers, are often characterised by long service lives and corresponding technical life cycles. When life cycles are long, the time value of money plays a role in asset management decision-making on capital investments and operation and maintenance expenditures. In this paper, a new life cycle costing (LCC) approach for discounting in two classes of maintenance optimisation models is developed. These models are the age replacement model and the interval replacement model. Three well-known LCC techniques, which are the present worth, the capital recovery and the capitalised equivalent worth, are combined and used to develop a stepwise methodology. This methodology is validated with the few case-specific mathematical equations that exist in the literature. The advantage of using this alternative LCC approach is its applicability and flexibility for reliability and maintenance engineers. The resulting LCC method builds on well-known LCC formula and enhances the understanding of the inclusion of discounting principles in reliability models. Understanding these principles makes the method flexible. Practitioners can extend or adapt the method to changing circumstances, such as additional cash flows and altering reliability modelling.@en