The cost and the value of performance data

It certainly costs money to collect data about the performance of your assets and infrastructure. This, of course, should represent an investment, giving insight into what's going on, notice of possible problems ahead, and signals for improvement.

All too often, the accountants see the cost of this, but not the value - and it becomes an easy target for short term cost savings.

"Modern Railways" for May 2005 gives an example. The train company First Great Western is getting very worried about increasing numbers of speed restrictions on the routes they run on. Too much make-do-and-mend by Railtrack has left a huge backlog of work.

Also, the removal by Railtrack of a "proper monitoring system" has led to "regular embankment collapses" which now require massive works to stabilise and rectify.

"A stitch in time saves nine" - but of course you need the data capture facility to know where and when a stitch is necessary.