Effective Maintenance Using a Database Management Tool

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) has over 300 facilities totaling approximately 2,000 waterfront assets, managed by six regional execution centers and one single Product Line Manager. With such a diverse portfolio and limited personnel, it is difficult to accurately and effectively distribute a centralized maintenance budget to those assets that are most critical. In order to quantify an asset's importance, the Coast Guard has begun assigning each asset an "Operational Capability Rating". This is a four-point metric that indicates the impact that the asset's structural deficiencies likely have on its ability to perform its intended function while taking into account the importance of this function to the overall mission of the facility. This rating system provides a "time to mission impact" component to compliment the traditional structural condition rating. The combination provides a decision matrix more in line with the Coast Guard's internal thought process. This is the basis of a prototype database that was developed in an effort to standardize the Coast Guard's waterfront asset management program and track their waterfront property on an asset-to-asset basis. The prototype was developed by Appledore Marine Engineering, Inc. (AMEI) with coordination from the USCG Civil Engineering Unit Cleveland, using Microsoft Access, an off-the-shelf database program chosen based on the need for a universally available and cost-efficient platform. The initial data was populated in conjunction with the Coast Guard's FY2012 District 5 (Mid-Atlantic) and District 9 (Great Lakes) Waterfront Facilities Inspections, performed between January and March of 2012 by AMEI. The key features of this asset management tool include an easy-to-use interface that allows the user to sort and filter by various criteria in many different combinations. This provides a better understanding of an asset's need for repair on a macro level; therefore, the USCG can more effectively allocate the necessary maintenance funds. In addition, the prototype was developed as a nonproprietary platform to allow for easy updating that can be populated independently by individual Civil Engineering Units or Districts and aggregated back to one master location. This paper will explain the issues the Coast Guard experiences with effectively maintaining and managing a large volume of diversified assets over a variety of operational environments and missions and how this prototype database was developed to meet these needs.