Can Centralised Asset Management Teams Create Value?
Many companies have a central maintenance or asset management function. The intent is good. It’s usually created to lift standards, share learning across sites, and improve performance across the whole business. However, in many organisations, this structure unintentionally creates tension between central maintenance leaders and site maintenance managers.
I’ve experienced this myself and seen it many times. I once worked with a business where the site teams complained about the central team’s directives and had little faith in their initiatives. At the same time, the central team had no faith in the site managers.
Then I saw something even more telling.
People from the site moved into central roles… and very quickly adopted the same negative perception of site teams. It was almost as if the role itself created the mindset.
That’s when it became clear, this isn’t about individuals, It’s a structural and cultural issue.
Often, the central team develops company-wide programs, asset management frameworks, and initiatives, and then pushes these across the business. What else can they do?
From their perspective, they are trying to improve performance at scale. But from the site’s perspective, it feels like someone is telling them how to run their operation, without understanding the reality they deal with every day.
Eventually, the site nods politely, and nothing really changes.
To avoid this, there are two principles that need to be absolutely clear:
1. Execution must sit with the site. The site maintenance manager owns the results. They run the teams, manage shutdowns, deal with daily operational pressure, and are accountable for outcomes. So they must have the final say on what gets implemented.
2. Sites must be honest about what will be implemented. With that control comes responsibility. Site leaders need to give honest, constructive feedback on what will and won’t work and where there is no clear reason not to implement something, they must own it as their initiative. Not just agree in the meeting… and then do something different afterwards.
The central asset management function becomes valuable when it supports the site, not directs it. Its role should be to:
- Provide specialised expertise
- Develop approaches that sites actually want and will use
- Share learning between operations
- Drive improvements that make sense centrally (like lifecycle strategy and long-term asset planning)
- Help solve difficult problems when asked
But not take control of execution and just as importantly, central teams must avoid judging the sites. It’s easy to look at performance data or visit briefly and form a view on what should be happening but site leaders are dealing with real constraints every day including getting teams motivated, aligned and operating as an effective team often with competing priorities.
If central teams approach sites with judgement, they lose trust immediately. If they approach with support, curiosity, and a genuine intent to help, they get engagement.
Support builds alignment. Judgement creates resistance.
There is another reality that central teams must understand. The site maintenance manager ultimately works for the site General Manager. When the GM wants something done, that becomes the priority. That’s how organisations work. Which means central maintenance leaders, often operating at a similar level, must influence the site GMs, not just the maintenance teams. If the GM understands the value of an initiative, the site maintenance manager will have both the permission and support to implement it properly.
And this leads to an important point. Central maintenance leaders must speak the language of the business, not just the language of asset management.
Site General Managers are accountable for outcomes like:
- Tonnes
- Production reliability
- Operating hours
- Risk reduction
- Cost per tonne
If a central initiative cannot clearly show how and when it will improve these outcomes, it will always struggle for traction. Trying to force an asset management framework onto a site that cannot see the benefit rarely works. People will sit in the meeting, they will nod, they will agree and then they will go back to doing what the operation demands that day.
Real alignment happens when central leaders clearly show the business outcomes that the asset management programs will deliver. Instead of pushing frameworks, the central team then becomes a genuine partner helping sites deliver better results.
If you work at site – Are you honestly committing to centralised programs or just saying what you know they want to hear?
If you’re in a central role – are you pushing programs or are you helping sites deliver better business outcomes?
