Behavioural preferences for engineering asset management

Abstract

The essence of managing physical assets that form our built environment is to provide benefits to satisfy the continuum of constraints imposed by rapidly changing business strategy, economy, ergonomics, operational and technical integrity, and regulatory compliance. Innovative approaches to enhance and sustain the profile of values required from these assets demands a shift in the behavioural preferences or attitudes of engineering professionals in asset management occupations. This implies that engineering professionals in asset management occupations need to adapt to new thinking styles, and adopt effective cognitive and mental processing modes. Whilst assuming that thinking styles manifest in attitudes, this paper describes the results of a 2005 survey of 190 practicing engineers to ascertain what thinking styles should determine behavioural preferences of engineering-oriented managers of built environment assets of the innovation generation. The study confirms other results from cognitive theory and psychology, highlighting the top ten thinking styles as ranked by survey respondents. The paper is intended to provide a strategic view of Engineering Asset Management within the context of innovation, with particular focus on behavioural alignment towards the modern paradigm of the knowledge and learning economy.