Gaining Time and Value through a Comprehensive Asset Management Program
Centralizing Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s asset management projects into one digital and dynamic dashboard with cohesive metrics provides a utility-wide overview of asset maintenance and CIP planning needs.
At a Glance
- Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (Water Authority) engaged Hazen to roll a decade’s worth of group-specific and strategic asset management programs into one comprehensive asset management tool.
- Hazen set up a MS SQL database to automatically integrate data from the Water Authority's systems, including the legacy asset management programs and staff-collected updates, and created an interactive digital dashboard to display the data in concise, accessible form.
- Centralizing the data reduced staff time spent on reporting, increasing utility-wide efficiency and expanding staff availability for operations and maintenance, and administrators and stakeholders gained up-to-date information to guide CIP decision-making for decades into the future.
Greg Gates serves as Hazen’s Water Resources Group Leader and Operations Manager for the Albuquerque, New Mexico office. He has decades of experience identifying sustainable solutions for pressing water management challenges.
Dilip Kumar is an internationally recognized expert in strategic infrastructure planning and smart asset management.
Marcela Tuñón Sion is Hazen’s South Central Regional Lead for Utility Management Services, with extensive experience in asset management programs, including development of capital improvement plans and construction management for conveyance and treatment facility projects.
Neepa Shah is Hazen’s South Central Regional Lead for conveyance and asset management and an expert in taking asset management programs from roadmap development to CIP prioritization. She specializes in CMOM programs and asset rehabilitation.
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Project Background
Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (Water Authority) is the largest water and wastewater utility in New Mexico, serving more than 650,000 residents. The Water Authority first completed an asset management program (AMP) in 2011, and in the years following, they conducted AMPs on specific asset groups using various consultants and scoring systems to plan and prioritize asset rehabilitation. Some asset groups had different scoring metrics while others were missing altogether, making comparisons for CIP planning difficult. The Water Authority decided to undertake a utility-wide AMP that would reconcile the separate AMPs, provide a utility-wide overview of their assets, and allow for consistent comparison and prioritization of projects in CIP planning.
In 2019, Hazen completed an AMP for the Water Authority's pump stations, using our risk assessment approach. Based on Hazen’s success in this study, the Water Authority engaged Hazen in 2021 to assist in their utility-wide AMP.
The Asset Insight application home screen. Data from all previous AMPs, Hazen's CAMP, and staff updates are accessible through the thumbnailed links.
Identifying a Solution
The Water Authority set the goal of completing AMPs for all asset groups (water, wastewater, reuse, and conveyance) across the organization within a two-year timeframe. To meet this deadline, Hazen created concurrent AMPs across all divisions of the Water Authority, including its 45 pump stations, 76-mgd water reclamation facility, and 90-mgd water treatment plant, in a comprehensive asset management program (CAMP).
Combining that data with the previous AMPs, Hazen created a centralized data warehouse with an interactive Asset Insight application that gives Water Authority staff more streamlined practices for collecting data and stakeholders an updated, comprehensive view of the Utility for CIP planning.
"By seamlessly synchronizing with the Water Authority's enterprise system, the Asset Insight application ensures that users have instant access to up-to-date information. This vital feature not only expedites decision-making and empowers staff to identify trends, it also enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of every action taken."
Hazen’s Approach
Creating the CAMP involved scoring each asset on the following parameters:
- Asset likelihood of failure, with condition and performance scores
- Asset consequence of failure
- Asset risk
- Asset rehabilitation projects
- Asset replacement projects
- Anticipated CIP Costs
- Levels of service (LOS) and key performance indicators (KPI)
Hazen performed a gap analysis of the last ten years of AMPs to standardize the scores from their disparate systems. The Water Authority added the newly compatible scores to their enterprise system and used them to compare assets across the Utility, increasing confidence in CIP planning decisions by identifying vulnerable assets and improving prioritization.
Long-Range Rehabilitation and Replacement of assets. Displays cost projections with comparison between baseline (i.e., current conditions) and user-set scenarios. (Note: all numbers are sample data and do not reflect real data.)
At the same time, Hazen integrated the AMPs into a SQL data warehouse that formed the basis of the Asset Insight application. With the inclusion of these previous AMPs, the application allows the Water Authority to consider possible scenarios using different budgetary values, with the ability to drill down to data points by facility, group, or major processes within the plants. This improved planning process ensures precise cost estimation and full utilization of the assets’ useful lives.
In designing the Asset Insight application, Hazen used staff interviews to help make the benefits of data centralization sustainable. Based on staff descriptions of data collation, Hazen was able to automate the integration of routinely collected data into the SQL data warehouse, moving KPI and LOS data to the application. With all the data in one searchable source, Water Authority staff could create reports quickly and easily, giving them many more hours to perform critical operation and upkeep duties.
The CAMP and application helped the Water Authority gain increased control of their data. Thanks to an improvement in data management, staff gained valuable time, and the Water Authority maximized value from their assets and CIP planning.
