Effective Asset Management is More Than Tools and Techniques Bradley Hayes Keeping track of utility assets and preventative maintenance has always been a challenge. It’s critical to maintain accurate records to inform capital improvement plans (CIPs), but the process by which we do so has long been evolving. When I started my career as a lift station mechanic in 1977, my supervisor emphasized the importance of writing everything down in a logbook and maintaining accurate records. Paper forms were used to record information about each component in the system and the information was stored in file folders. By the mid-1980s, computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) were introduced, but the software was not user-friendly, and it consumed more time than logging everything on paper. In the 1990s, the idea of asset management was born through the concept of capacity, maintenance, and operation management (CMOM), which became the topic of conversation among utility directors and operators. As the utility director, from 2006 to 2018, for the City of Tavares (city) in central Florida, I advocated for better, more-detailed maintenance records to determine where best to invest our dedicated funding and optimize our operations. In 2009, I hired a firm to digitize the utility’s water and sewer plans to upload to a geographic information system (GIS), but the result was a huge failure. I had to hire another company capable of reviewing the plans and importing the data into GIS, which took a couple of years to complete. With all the water, wastewater, and stormwater asset information finally catalogued in GIS, the utility was then well-positioned to develop a CMMS for the wastewater collection system and treatment plant. At this point, I also pushed to upgrade the metering system to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to improve meter accuracy and incoming revenue from user fees. This experience led me to visit the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) State Revolving Fund (SRF) staff in 2017 to raise my growing concern that utilities were seeking funding year after year to repair or rehabilitate the same equipment due to poor asset management and planning. I invited the consulting firm to join me to showcase its ability to create and implement successful CMMS and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software that catered to the utility. I was able to show the SRF staff the customized dashboard that put all of the asset data at my fingertips and the ease with which I
could generate charts, graphs, and reports to track maintenance and meet regulatory compliance requirements.
Developing a Standard for Best Practices The evolution of asset management during my career inspired my quest to conduct a pilot study that would inform a standard of practice for similar-sized utilities in Florida. Two years after retiring from my position as utility director and accepting a position at Woodard & Curran, SRF staff commissioned the city to conduct an asset management pilot program that would establish best practices of asset management planning for midsize utilities serving between 10,000 and 50,000 customers. The launch of this program coincided with the new Florida Administrative Code Rule 62-552700, which requires utilities that receive financial support to maintain an active fiscal sustainability and asset management (FSAM) program with a rate reduction of 0.1 percent on state loans with reimbursement eligibility. Funded by the drinking water and clean water SRF, the study was conducted from January 2020 to May 2021, with the water utility focused on: 1) Applying U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asset management guidelines in Florida. 2) Addressing best practices for the selection of asset management technology. 3) Connecting an asset management plan to fiscal management concepts. The program was a collaborative effort among Tavares Utilities Department staff, Woodard & Curran, and SRF staff to identify and analyze both CMMS and enterprise asset management system (EAMS) software. The resulting practical guide for mid-sized utilities in Florida will apply to water, wastewater, stormwater, reclaimed water, public works, and other utilities.
Assessing Key Functional Requirements The utilities department staff participated in a kick-off workshop and detailed questionnaire as the first step in identifying critical functionality requirements and features for CMMS or EAMS software. The feedback from staff helped identify key operational and business needs, while also prioritizing the criteria on which to select and evaluate software packages. The goal is for the
16 January 2022 • Florida Water Resources Journal
software to streamline asset data collection and management, including vertical and horizontal asset inventory, service calls, scheduling, tracking and prioritizing maintenance, collecting and processing asset data to drive risk-based capital planning, and generating appropriate reports. Unlike the limited technology in the 1980s, this modern software will be interoperable and user-friendly to provide a high return on investment (ROI) by improving efficiency and maximizing the useful life of all assets, and by being both customizable and easily updated. The platform will also integrate seamlessly with Esri GIS and existing software for metering, billing, citizen requests, closed-circuit television (CCTV), SCADA, backflow, and laboratory data.
Evaluating Multiple Software Solutions The project team identified 10 software packages to evaluate, including two already used by the city, the standard FSAM software for small water utilities, and seven industry-standard packages. Once selected, these were evaluated for the functionality of each software package based on the requirements identified by staff. The team determined six key functional areas to rate each platform: S Service Requests S Asset Inventory S Work Orders S Query and Reporting S Advanced Asset Management S Overall Useability Each functional area included a list of specific criteria by which to assess and rank the software packages. Software evaluations were completed using previous implementation and software administrator hands-on experience, demonstrations, previous studies, vendor information requests, trial subscriptions, and industry research. Table 1 shows how each software platform ranked on average in each functional area. Figure 1 shows the total scores for each software platform based on the total of average ranking, weighted by functional area. The score matrix is as follows: 0 = does not include the feature indicated; 1 = ome functionality or ability to integrate; 2 = fully performs feature, less user-friendly, less customizable, and provides direct third-party integration; or 3 = very effective for this feature and user-friendly.
