Water Asset Management International 3.2 (2007) 27-31

Integrated modelling, data warehousing and web publishing for water asset management

Zheng Yi Wu, Andres Gutierrez

Haestad Methods Solution Centre
USA

Asset management has gradually become a holistic paradigm for the water industry, although only a limited number of utilities have undertaken the approach. Many factors may contribute to the lack of wide adoption. Good practice of asset management requires not only managerial change within a water utility organisation, but also the implementation of a comprehensive technical framework that enables water utilities to reach the essential target, that is to minimise the life-cycle costs of owning and operating infrastructure assets while maintaining required service levels and sustaining the infrastructure. To achieve the goal, utility engineers and managers must be equipped with the tools for information management, system analysis, and timely communication within and between organisations.

This paper presents the case study of a water system in USA. The system provides water service to a population of more than 300,000 through 31 reservoirs, 14 wells, 116 pumps and more than 800 miles of water distribution pipelines. An open software architecture is adopted for complete data management, integrated hydraulic, water quality, optimisation analysis, document management for technical and non-tecnical contents (CAD drawings, spreadsheets, correspondence, meeting minutes, etc) together with geo web publishing for information sharing. The approach is well under implementation. It is believed that the technology paradigm shift is going to significantly improve the information management integrity, decision-making intelligence and operation efficiency for the water company. This study exemplifies valuable lessons for adopting a technically sound asset management programme.

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