From trusting the machine to The future of AIP – Our key takeaways from the IFS Copperleaf AIP Forum
Held at Silverstone as part of IFS Connect UK&I, the IFS Copperleaf Asset Investment Planning (AIP) Forum brought together leaders from utilities, transport, energy, and infrastructure to discuss the future of capital planning.
Across every industry represented, one challenge stood out: how to make confident, defensible investment decisions while funding pressures, regulation, delivery constraints, and asset risks are constantly shifting at once.
The conversation showed how AIP is evolving. What was once mainly about selecting projects is now becoming a broader enterprise capability, helping organizations evaluate trade-offs, align investments to strategy, and adapt as conditions change.
The expectation is moving from ‘help me prioritize projects’ to ‘help me make better enterprise-level decisions.
Edward Clark
VP of Sales UK&I, IFS Copperleaf
From static plans to scenario-led planning
A recurring theme throughout the forum was the need to move beyond a single baseline forecast. Infrastructure organizations are operating in an environment shaped by aging assets, affordability pressures, climate risk, regulatory scrutiny, and changing delivery capacity.
That makes scenario agility essential. Leaders need to understand not only what the preferred plan is, but why it holds up across plausible futures, what trade-offs were considered, and how decisions can be explained to regulators, boards, customers, and delivery teams.
Uncertainty is not a problem to be solved — it’s a condition to be managed.Matt Bather
Senior Customer Success Manager UK&I, IFS Copperleaf
SSEN: from outputs to value
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks’ (SSEN) session, delivered with PA Consulting and IFS Copperleaf, showed what this shift looks like in practice.
The team spoke about its journey from manual, spreadsheet-based planning toward transparent investment optimization and multi-capital value appraisal. The aim was not just to implement a system, but to build a more agile, value-led planning process that could support ED2 decisions while preparing the business for ED3.
We didn’t want to eat the whole cake. We wanted to take it in slices and land very well.Donovan Tay
Head of Asset Planning, SSEN
Rather than starting with an unconstrained analysis, SSEN and PA Consulting began with clear business questions, defined portfolio boundaries, and introduced constraints progressively to reflect real-world delivery conditions. This helped translate complex analysis into investment insights leaders could act on and defend.
The next phase is focused on adoption: embedding IFS Copperleaf into governance, improving data update frequency, expanding the value framework, and continuing ED3 scenario testing.
Network Rail: trust requires governance and expertise
Network Rail explored a critical question for modern asset planning: how do we learn to trust the machine? With advanced analytics supporting long-term planning across a vast and complex asset base, Network Rail emphasized that trust cannot be assumed simply because an answer comes from a system. It must be built through governance, system understanding, and human expertise.
Systematised doesn’t mean correct. Systematised means systematised
Piers Treacher
Head of Advanced Analytics, Network Rail
The message was clear: better tools do not reduce the need for expert judgment. They increase the importance of people who can challenge assumptions, interpret outputs, and understand the real-world consequences of the decisions being made.
Learn more about Network Rail’s success story here
Value as the common language
Across the day, one theme connected every discussion: value-based decision making.
As capital plans become more complex, organizations need a consistent way to compare trade-offs across cost, risk, resilience, customer impact, and deliverability. The Copperleaf Value Framework helps make value visible and actionable, aligning investment decisions to strategy and creating a common language for trade-offs.
This is what allows organizations to move from subjective debate to transparent decision logic and to explain why a capital plan is the right plan.
What comes next for AIP
The AIP Forum UK&I showed that the future of planning is not about creating a perfect forecast. It is about building the agility to make better decisions as conditions change.
That means moving beyond static plans and siloed prioritization. It means comparing scenarios, aligning investments to strategy, and making trade-offs transparent. It means using advanced analytics responsibly, with governance and human expertise at the center. And it means treating AIP as a strategic enterprise capability, not a periodic planning exercise.
For infrastructure leaders, the opportunity is clear: build capital plans that are executable, explainable, adaptable, and aligned to long-term value.
Ready to build more confidence into your capital planning?
Contact us to explore how IFS Copperleaf AIP can help your organization align investments to strategy, compare scenarios, and defend decisions with confidence.
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