WERF convened a workshop on March 21-22, 2002, for the purpose of characterizing the spectrum of asset management programs across public water and wastewater utilities and recommending a research agenda to promote the next generation of tools for reducing risk and improving competitiveness. WERF's goals for the workshop were to:    

• Survey, examine, and document effective asset management approaches.        
• Construct a view of the state of implementation of asset management and identify barriers to more broad-based implementation.        
• Pinpoint where improved tools and technical approaches could enhance decision making, confidence, efficiency, communication, and results.        
• Determine and distinguish differences between large and small utilitiesﾒ approaches to asset management.        
• Prepare a prioritized list of research initiatives to address the industry needs and develop a conceptual scope and budget for these research projects. 

A recent WERF Subscriber Survey supports the view that asset management is a priority issue for utilities. Utility respondents ranked asset management 5^th among 20 categories by priority, and sixty percent of respondents gave asset management a priority ranking of 1 or 2.  

Contents

• Premises and Foundations of the Workshop     
• State of the Practice     
• Level of Tool Development     
• Infrastructure Security     
• Pre-Workshop Survey Results     
• International Participants Presentations     
• Workshop Activities and Research Recommendations