City of Aiken picks OpenGov to replace spreadsheet-based asset management

The City of Aiken, South Carolina, has chosen OpenGov Enterprise Asset Management to centralize transportation, water and wastewater operations. The move is designed to improve visibility into assets, maintenance, inventory and long-term capital planning for the city’s roughly 32,000 residents.

Why it matters: - Aiken is replacing manual spreadsheet workflows with a single system for assets, work orders and maintenance. - The shift is meant to give city staff better visibility into costs, condition and repair history. - The platform is also intended to support long-term capital planning instead of reactive maintenance.

What happened: - The City of Aiken selected OpenGov Enterprise Asset Management for transportation, water distribution and wastewater collection operations. - The city will use the platform as a centralized system of record for assets, work orders, preventive maintenance and inventory management. - Aiken’s Engineering and Utilities Department oversees construction, repair, maintenance and replacement of infrastructure across water, wastewater and streets.

The details: - Aiken had managed the portfolio almost entirely in Excel spreadsheets, without a unified system linking assets, work history or costs. - That approach limited visibility into what the city owned, the condition of those assets and what maintenance had already been performed. - OpenGov will also help the city track its fleet, including patrol cars, fire apparatuses, radios, computers and dispatch equipment. - The city will be able to monitor per-asset maintenance costs, usage and replacement timing in one place. - Inventory management will automatically deduct materials from stock when work is performed. - OpenGov was selected for connecting work orders, assets, service requests and inventory in a single workflow. - Staff will be able to see costs, repair history and asset condition in one system. - GIS integration will support water distribution and wastewater collection workflows. - Aiken is home to about 32,000 residents and sits in the western South Carolina Piedmont about 17 miles east of Augusta, Georgia.

Between the lines: - The move signals a shift from informal, memory-driven maintenance management to a structured data system. - Bringing utilities, streets and fleet data into one platform can reduce gaps between planning, operations and budgeting. - Aiken’s adoption also puts the city alongside other South Carolina governments already using OpenGov solutions, including the City of Simpsonville, County of Charleston, City of Anderson, City of Greer and Town of Hilton Head Island.

What's next: - Aiken will implement OpenGov across its transportation, water and wastewater operations. - City staff will begin using the platform to manage maintenance, inventory and asset tracking in a connected workflow. - The new data foundation is expected to support future capital planning decisions.