Grant: Idea to Innovation

To sustain the safety and operability of assets (roads, bridges, buildings, etc.), asset owners face many challenges not only in the large time and cost to inspect all assets, but also in the difficulty in allocating the limited renewal budgets. To respond to a large market need, as identified through a pilot study with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), patented techniques have been developed to automate inspection and support optimum fund allocation. This project intends to further develop this early work into a viable commercial prototype. At the research front, the project examines the performance indicators that assess the economical, environmental, and social sustainability aspects that are of paramount concern to asset owners. At the development front, the project will develop, and validate, a Visual Asset Management (VAM) prototype that is unique in its visual features that save inspection time and cost, as well as its powerful optimization function that maximize the return on investment and comply with the sustainability and green building requirements. This project will be carried out in collaboration with Conestoga College and the TDSB, which owns more than 550 schools. In addition to developing a structured database backbone, the project will resolve the technical uncertainties related to developing a 3-D visual inspection system on a hand-held device; identifying component-dependent criteria and inspection parameters that assess the sustainability and green performance of buildngs; and scaling up the optimization model to consider thousands of assets simultaneously. Detailed tasks are included in this proposal along with the proposed commercialization plan. This project will help VAM incorporate necessary functionality to penetrate the multi-billion dollar business of asset management, both as an add-on to existing systems, and also as an independent application. VAM targets large property owners (school boards, universities, industrial plants, etc.) that require simple yet advanced tools to support decisions related to sustainable and green operation of their assets.