Shifting from ‘my asset’ to ‘our system’: why shared visibility matters for asset management

The following article featured on the Āpōpō news webpage on 1 April 2026.

by Angus Bargh, Founder – Open Plan

With major infrastructure renewals coming up across the country there is an increasing focus on asset management. Foundational to the practice of asset management is that organisations know and understand their assets – and to effectively manage them, it is also important that they understand how these assets interact with infrastructure networks which often belong to other organisations.

Photo credit: Wellington City Council

This shift was highlighted in the recently released Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan, which calls for a more strategic, system-wide approach to infrastructure planning and investment.

While this is clearly the direction the sector wants to move in, there is one longstanding barrier: lack of visibility. It can be difficult to see what other organisations are planning in the same corridor, what is underground, and to identify who needs to be involved.

With 70 road controlling authorities across New Zealand and no standardised way to share infrastructure data, coordination often relies on meetings, emails or information published on websites that might not reach the right people at the right time. The consequences of the current approach look similar across the sector -clashing projects, duplicated effort, poor sequencing, and damage to underground assets.

For asset managers planning major renewals programmes, this lack of shared visibility can make it difficult to identify risks and opportunities early. But a growing ecosystem of tools is emerging to help bridge organisational silos and provide a clearer picture across the wider infrastructure network.

Better coordination through a shared view – the tools

Two tools designed to support this shift are the National Forward Works Viewer (FWV) and the NZ Underground Asset Register (NZUAR), stewarded by the Digital Built Aotearoa Foundation.

Both are federated geospatial platforms that provide a shared view of infrastructure activity and assets across organisations.

The National Forward Works Viewer enables organisations to publish and view planned infrastructure works across the country. It brings together information from hundreds of organisations, including project timing, locations and contacts, allowing users to automatically detect potential clashes and opportunities for coordination early in the planning phase.

Complementing this, the NZ Underground Asset Register provides secure access to a shared map of underground infrastructure, helping users identify asset locations, ownership and contacts before excavation. Crucially, it also creates a feedback loop: when contractors expose assets on site, they can record what was actually found and return that information to asset owners. Over time, this turns routine excavation into a practical mechanism for continuously improving underground asset records.

These tools were shaped through extensive sector collaboration. A national technical reference group of over 70 members was established to provide a cross-section of the industry, to ensure they continue to reflect real-world needs.

Importantly, the tools are designed to work alongside existing legacy systems, helping connect information across organisations, without owning it.

Viewing access is free for everyone in the infrastructure sector – with ongoing costs covered by nominal subscription agreements with local road controlling authorities.

Together, these tools remove barriers to early coordination by identifying who needs to be involved and making it easier to collaborate.

Digital Built Aotearoa Foundation – Driving sector change
Both tools are stewarded by the Digital Built Aotearoa Foundation, a charitable trust established following the Canterbury earthquakes to act as a neutral data trust for the public good. DBAF was formed to ensure the hard-won knowledge and data from disaster recoveries isn’t lost – but instead gets integrated into daily ‘peacetime’ operations.

The not-for-profit model enables key features such as unlimited user licences, ongoing sector training and platform improvements – capabilities that are not always prioritised in commercial software models. DBAF facilitates the standardising and sharing of data between public and private actors, without owning the data itself.

The goal: to make shared visibility normal across everyday infrastructure planning and delivery, so New Zealand is prepared for disasters with common, collaborative solutions.

Who is using it? A growing national picture

Adoption of the Forward Works Viewer has grown steadily across the country. It is currently used by 21 Road Controlling Authorities (including in NZ’s five largest cities) and covering council areas representing more than 68% of the population.

With NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi recently joining to publish its works and embed the tool into planning processes the platform is beginning to provide a more complete national picture of forward works activity to complement councils.

Meanwhile, following a successful pilot in Wellington, the NZ Underground Asset Register is preparing for national scaling, with several councils already expressing interest. A key driver is the opportunity to improve collective knowledge of subsurface assets over time: each time the ground is opened, contractors can capture what is actually found on site and feed that information back through the register. For asset owners, this creates a practical pathway to progressively validate and improve underground asset records through everyday delivery activity, rather than relying solely on periodic surveys or legacy as-builts.

Photo credit: Wellington City Council

As more organisations contribute their data, the value of these tools increases. What begins as a coordination tool gradually becomes something more powerful: a shared view of infrastructure and how infrastructure investment is unfolding across regions and networks.

Lifting capability through better visibility

Improving visibility across infrastructure networks helps lift capability across the entire infrastructure sector.

When asset management professionals can see planned works, underground assets and contextual risks across the whole lifelines system it becomes easier to make informed decisions about timing, sequencing and collaboration. Just as importantly, when site observations are fed back into shared records, each project becomes an opportunity to improve the quality of asset information itself – reducing uncertainty for future renewals, maintenance and excavation. It closes the loop between what asset owners think is underground and what contractors actually find on site.

The visibility provided by these tools can help organisations:

• Coordinate projects earlier and reduce project clashes and risks
• Identify adjacent assets with short remaining life so renewals can be aligned and delivered together
• Improve underground asset records over time by feeding verified site findings back into asset data
• Meet obligations under the
• Adopt a “dig once” approach that minimises disruption and cost
• Protect underground infrastructure and reduce asset strikes
• Improve sequencing of projects to extend the lifespan of road assets

Information about infrastructure is itself critical infrastructure. By connecting up the data we already have, we can begin treating our networks as the interconnected systems they are – allowing the sector to move from reactive coordination towards more strategic planning and aligned investment – which is where the real gains for asset management are.

Find out more about how we can support coordination in your organisation – get in touch: admin@digitalbuiltaotearoa.org.nz