Civil Engineering Graduate Seminar: Asset Management Basics

Civil Engineering Graduate Seminar
Thursday, October 17, Room 641 Dow Building, 4:00-5:00 pm
Speaker: Dr. Timothy Colling

Title: Asset Management Basics

Civil engineers that work in public infrastructure are ultimately responsible for managing assets. This includes the long term operation and maintenance of these assets for the public good. Managing large networks of assets such as roads or bridges can be overwhelming for an engineer unless there is a structured “system” or method for analyzing condition, predicting need and allocating resources. This lecture will provide an overview of asset management concepts that can be applied to the management of any large network of assets. The discussion will focus on specific examples relating to pavement management, as well as providing illustrative examples for asset management for other more familiar assets such as cars and houses.

Tim Colling, PhD., P.E.- Director, Center for Technology and Training

Tim joined Michigan Tech in 2002, having spent the previous 9 years working as a consulting engineer for various firms in the Midwest. Tim is the Director of the Center for Technology and has been involved in a number of pavement management research projects as well as outreach and technology transfer projects including:

  • Tim is the primary instructor that teaches distress identification for
    the State of Michigan’s annual public road condition survey, where he
    develops training material and instructs classes annually for over 450
    practicing engineers and technicians that collect pavement distress data.
  • Tim developed training materials for several professional development
    classes focusing on pavement management and asset management that have
    been presented over 50 times over the course of the last three year to an
    audience of over 1,000 transportation agency staff.

  • In 2011 Tim was one of a ten member team representing the United States
    on the FHWA International Scan on Pavement Management. During the Scan
    Tim traveled to five countries and met with pavement managers from twelve
    countries learning about pavement management best practices.