Lessons for specifying the system boundaries of an asset management plan from four case studies of failures

Managing knowledge is important to the construction industry because of the expense and duration of its projects. However, it is difficult to decide the scope of the knowledge base required for a design when sustainable ecosystem issues, which may originally appear to be tangential, become in the longer term primary negative influences. In such cases, how do we manage the risk of under-specifying the scope of a new asset management system at the design stage? And how do we justify the increased cost of a larger geographical or disciplinary catchment for the asset management plan? This paper gives a route to an answer by reporting four cases of failure of a project outside its original system boundaries that was otherwise successful within them. An implication of the low carbon agenda is that design lives will be longer and the likelihood of unforeseen ecosystem interactions will increase. And that the designer will need prompts in terms of new knowledge. Accordingly this paper reports on current R&D by the authors to create a computer package that addresses whole-life AMP issues at the design stage. This will be of significant impact in addressing the low carbon upgrade issues in urban buildings and infrastructure. Currently we call this Snake Eye.