Lifecycle stages and PCOAR
The gas industry often describes an asset’s life as Plan, Construct, Operate, Analyze, Retire. Strata’s templates use Plan, Create, Operate, Maintain, Renew and Dispose. Here is how one maps to the other, and why.
Published 2026-10-09 · Theory only: general industry knowledge, no client data.
PCOAR, stage by stage
PCOAR (Plan, Construct, Operate, Analyze, Retire) describes an asset’s life and is used in gas asset management. Strata’s templates use six stages instead. Here is how the two line up. Organizations define PCOAR in their own ways, so check the match against your own standard before relying on it.
| PCOAR | Strata stage | Steps in Strata | How they differ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Plan | Needs assessment, Capital planning | Deciding what the system needs and what to spend on it. |
| Construct | Create | Design, Construct | Strata starts the asset’s life at its design, and the data (standards, as-built records) starts there too. |
| Operate | Operate | Inspect, Monitor | Running the asset and watching how it behaves. |
| Analyze | No stage of its own | The decisions themselves | Analysis is something you do with data, not a period in an asset’s life, so Strata shows it as the decisions each data point feeds. |
| Retire | Dispose | Decommission | Taking the asset out of service, or abandoning it, for good. |
Two Strata stages have no PCOAR letter of their own:
| Strata stage | Steps in Strata | Where PCOAR puts it |
|---|---|---|
| Maintain | Preventive, Corrective | In a PCOAR reading this sits inside Operate. Strata gives it its own stage because most day-to-day asset decisions are made here. |
| Renew | Rehabilitate, Replace | In a PCOAR reading a replacement is a Retire followed by a Construct. Strata keeps it as one stage because it is budgeted and planned as one thing. |
Why the templates use plain English
- More people can read it. Field crews, finance and engineering all read the same hierarchy, and a plain word like Create, Renew or Dispose needs no explaining in the room.
- Every stage is a place in an asset’s life. Analyze is something you do, so Strata shows it as the decision a data point feeds, not as a stage.
- The money and the decisions sit in Maintain and Renew. Splitting them out lets a decision say exactly where it belongs: Repair, rehabilitate or replace touches Maintain, and Renew as well.
- It works for every industry. All 8 templates use the same six stages, from gas and water to bridges and aviation, so a decision means the same thing in each.
The stages in use: the decisions in the Gas distribution template
Each decision in a Strata template sits in the stage, or stages, it belongs to. These are the gas distribution template’s; the Oil and Gas template places its own the same way.
| Stage | Decisions placed in it |
|---|---|
| Plan | Risk ranking, Capital renewal program, Long-term financial forecast, Pipe replacement priority |
| Create | Design standards, As-built acceptance |
| Operate | Inspection frequency, Leak survey frequency, Pressure monitoring |
| Maintain | Maintenance strategy, Repair, rehabilitate or replace, Corrosion remediation |
| Renew | Capital renewal program, Repair, rehabilitate or replace, Pipe replacement priority, Meter change-out |
| Dispose | Retire or abandon |
Terms used here are defined in the asset data glossary.
Related guides
- What is an asset hierarchy? The pillar: levels, classes and instances, common patterns, and the mistakes to avoid.
- Asset data glossary Plain definitions of the terms the templates use.
- Hierarchy vs. relationships Classification, connections and decisions are three different questions.
