AquaTwin Asset Modernizes Water Infrastructure Systems

At-A-Glance

 Built exclusively on ArcGIS Pro®, AquaTwin Asset is a powerful, simple to set up and use feature-packed software for improved capital planning and asset management of water, wastewater and stormwater systems. Capabilities include:

•  Determining current asset health and rating system based on information such as maintenance and repair history, hydraulic performance, and remaining useful life.
• Economic life cycle cost analysis to compute the optimal asset replacement date and reduce total cost of ownership at an acceptable level of risk.
• Intelligent decision tools for creating prioritized pipe replacement, rehabilitation, and O&M inspection plans together with costs and on-going projects planning for scheduling and capital budgeting.
• Predictive models to estimate (and prevent) future pipe failure and end of life based on statistical methods and machine learning techniques, helping to optimize maintenance schedules and system performance and reliability. Predict and avoid problems before they can do harm.
• Artificial-intelligence-based insights for identifying factors and parameters leading or contributing to pipe deterioration or failure.
• Specialized applications to validate capital improvement plans against performance, budget, regulatory, and system specific requirements.
• Rich custom dashboards that directly connect to maps and data enabling data-driven decisions, cross-departmental cooperation and team alignment, and communications with internal or external stakeholders.
• Everything is mapped and accessible within the ArcGIS Pro ecosystem, including pipes at more or less risks, for actionable process insights and value extraction.

Overview

 Our nation’s water infrastructure system, which varies greatly in size and complexity, is made up of 2.2 million miles of buried drinking water pipes and 800,000 miles of sewer pipes, much of which is reaching the end of its service life. This aging and deteriorating infrastructure is in critical need of investment, repair, and revitalization. With limited budgets and restricted flexibility in rates, paying for infrastructure upgrades present a considerable challenge for utilities. Long-term planning is the only realistic path toward effectively maintaining and improving these systems. It allows utilities to direct limited resources to where they are most needed and to effectively prioritize and schedule major infrastructure investments. Without proper long-term planning, utilities run the risk of not being able to pay for capital costs when they need to, leading to deteriorating service and, ultimately, public health risks. Adopting a strategy-led asset management approach provides utilities the means to plan, define and execute maintenance and capital investment strategies that drive improved business decisions and translate and realize their strategic intents. It offers utilities a powerful way to make better decisions about budgets and infrastructure investments to achieve higher system reliability and service level at lower costs, putting them on the fast track to operational excellence.

AquaTwin Asset lets water utilities shift from a time-based to a strategy-led risk-based asset management approach to help them predict future failures and better prioritize their capital and operations/maintenance investments and improve their resilience. It helps them make intelligent risk-based decisions by choosing the right project, at the right time, for the right reason. It’s not only good management; it sets the roadmap for achieving value from infrastructure assets by optimizing cost, risk and performance across the asset lifecycle.

 Digital Technology Integration

 AquaTwin Asset provides a full and seamless integration of powerful digital technologies including industry-leading ArcGIS Pro® (e.g., asset visualization, management and maintenance); AI/ML (e.g., leak/defect detection and localization, virtual condition assessment, root cause failure analysis, demand forecasting); criticality analysis; network simulation (e.g., pressure, velocity, fire flow and water quality calculation); predictive analytics (e.g., asset failure prediction); and remote sensing (e.g., SCADA and sensors data). Users can directly connect to maps and data and create custom dashboards that best inform internal or external stakeholders. This unique combination of advanced analytics, mapping capabilities and decision intelligence ushers in a new era of water infrastructure management, accelerating digital transformation of traditional asset management into strategy-led management.

 Asset Management Framework

The asset management framework consists of five core elements (USEPA).

 1.    Understand the current state of infrastructure assets

A critical problem for utilities today is how to determine which assets might be most vulnerable to deterioration and therefore the best candidates for rehabilitation, renewal, or replacement. AquaTwin Asset gives utilities a deeper understanding about their assets — the demand, the condition and remaining useful life, the risk and consequence of failure, the rating system, the values and feasible renewal options (repair, refurbish, replace), and the cost of these options — to help make and increase confidence in investment decisions.

 2.    Meet required sustainable level of service

 AquaTwin Asset lets utilities track actual system performance goals and the physical capabilities of assets based on level of service standards and current and anticipated regulatory requirements. Level of service requirements can be updated to account for changes due to growth, regulatory requirements, and technology improvements.

3.    Identify and rank assets critical to sustained performance

 Not every asset presents the same failure risk or is equally critical to system’s operations. Therefore, it is important to know which assets are required to sustain system’s performance. AquaTwin Asset lets users identify critical assets — those with a high likelihood (probability) of failing (e.g., old, poor condition, etc.) and major consequences if they do fail (e.g., major expense, system failure, safety concerns, social and environmental costs, etc.) —and rank them accordingly. Users can also conduct root cause analysis to determine the parameters and factors top contributors of asset failures and implement specific corrective actions to minimize break rate.

 4.    Compute minimum life cycle costs

 AquaTwin Asset calculates the lowest cost options for providing the highest level of service over time. It lets utilities optimize the work O&M crews are doing, where they are doing it, and why. It helps them make risk-based decisions by choosing the right pipe to replace or repair, at the right place at the right time, and move from reactive maintenance to predictive maintenance — creating value for customers.

 5.    Determine best long-term funding strategy

 Sound financial decisions and developing an effective long-term funding strategy are critical to sustaining operations. Knowing the best solutions that would lower the cost to own and operate your assets long term and the full economic costs and revenues generated by your system enables you to determine your system’s financial forecast and decide what changes need to be made to your system’s long-term funding strategy. You can develop your capital plans to include water asset needs in the context of all municipal needs. For example, repairs and upgrades to drinking water systems should be coordinated with similar wastewater system needs, or even road repairs and other related infrastructure repairs and improvements.

 Key benefits of AquaTwin Asset

Examples of outcomes that can be realized by water utilities using AquaTwin Asset:

•  Prolonging asset life and improving decisions about asset rehabilitation, repair, and replacement
• Meeting consumer demands with a focus on system sustainability
• Setting rates based on sound operational and financial planning
• Budgeting focused on critical activities for sustained performance
• Meeting service expectations and regulatory requirements
• Strengthening infrastructure resilience and responses to emergencies
• Improving the security and safety of assets
• Reducing downtime and overall costs for both operations and capital expenditures
• Securing business and operational continuity

Adopting AquaTwin Asset lets utilities gain a deeper understanding of the health and performance of their water infrastructure assets, now and in the future, optimize preventive maintenance and capital replacement spending, extend the useful life of infrastructure investment, and leverage expert recommendations for resolving unexpected problems. In doing so, they will help to develop modern sustainable infrastructure ... drive strategic continuity and accelerate their digital transformations ... and leverage their infrastructure assets to own the future and build better communities.