Case Study
Case Study: Town of Caledon, ON
From Disjointed Data to Improved Decisions with EAM
Introduction
The Town of Caledon, a large and growing Canadian municipality with a population of approximately 76,000 residents and over 700 square kilometers to manage, undertook a significant project to modernize its infrastructure management. The Town recognized the need for a connected system to efficiently manage its assets and ensure the long-term reliability of public services. The main goal was the implementation of an integrated Enterprise Asset Management System (EAM) to replace disconnected legacy platforms and serve as a single source of truth for all municipal assets.
Challenges
Disjointed Systems and Data Duplication:
Asset information was scattered and duplicated across multiple, non-integrated legacy systems. This made year-end reconciliation with the Town’s financial system a difficult, time-consuming process.
Reactive, Inefficient Maintenance:
The lack of integration resulted in inefficient tracking of asset maintenance histories and no automated process for storing asset condition assessments or scheduling preventive maintenance. This limited the ability to avoid unexpected failures and unnecessary repair costs.
Limited Capital and Financial Planning:
Without a single, authoritative source of data, Town staff struggled to effectively select and prioritize capital projects and often relied on manual reviews to identify assets for early replacement due to poor performance or high maintenance costs. The existing systems limited the ability to perform lifecycle cost prediction and long-term financial modeling.
Solutions
Unified Asset Inventory:
The system needed to provide a single view of all assets, capable of managing and recording asset classifications and detailed attributes (like condition, replacement value, and remaining useful life). It also had to support essential financial accounting requirements, including PSAB 3150 and FIR schedules for calculating amortization and capital asset continuity.
Work Order System:
This required a full suite of tools to receive, assign, track, and close work orders against all asset classes, and service requests. They also needed the ability to track and cost labour, equipment, and materials associated with each work order to support accurate activity- based costing.
GIS Integration:
The system required essential integration with the Town’s third-party GIS platform to create a GIS-centric environment. This integration allows staff to quickly visualize assets geographically, generate work orders by selecting an asset from a map, and add location data like GPS coordinates.
Decision Support:
Tools allowing asset condition tracking, calculation of deterioration curves, construction of a risk matrix (using probability and consequence of failure), and scenario planning to improve maintenance and renewal investments.
Decision Support and Risk Management:
The ideal system needed lifecycle management capabilities, including tracking asset condition, calculating deterioration curves to predict future condition, and scenario planning. It also had to have the ability to create a risk matrix (using probability and impact of failure) to factor risk into replacement planning and renewal investments.
Management Support:
To assist with data-driven planning, the EAM had to provide leaders dashboard reports with exception reporting based on specific criteria defined by the Town staff (e.g., annual maintenance cost greater than the purchase price or multiple work orders issued for the same asset).
Results
The implementation of PSD Citywide’s EAM software provided the Town of Caledon with significant foundational improvements and equipped staff with essential tools for data-driven planning.
Empowered Decision-Making:
By unifying asset data into a central platform and using risk assessment tools, the Town gained the ability to prioritize maintenance and capital spending based on objective data and risk profiles, moving away from reactive crisis management.
Improved Operational Efficiency:
The transition to an EAM system improved the efficiency of key workflows, automating the tracking and costing of resources against assets. This change led to more accurate budget forecasting and a clearer understanding of the true cost of ownership for their infrastructure.
Learn more about the core features every Enterprise Asset Management system should have.
Case Study: Town of Caledon, ON
From Disjointed Data to Improved Decisions with EAM
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The Town of Caledon moved from struggling with fragmented legacy systems, which caused data duplication and hindered capital planning, to operating with a centralized Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system using Citywide Assets, Maintenance and GIS that serves as the single source of truth for its staff and residents.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Gained the ability to prioritize maintenance and capital spending based on objective risk profiles
Improved Efficiency
Automated resource tracking and cost allocation against assets for more accurate budgeting
Enhanced Lifecycle & Financial Planning
Enabled long-term financial modeling and data-driven asset selection for early replacement
