Southern Water Asset Management

Having developed the Common Framework for Capital Maintenance Planning and assisted many companies in implementing best practice approaches for the PR09 price review, Tynemarch have now released an integrated software environment, PIONEER, in which to run an advanced suite of models. The cost and service forecasting models cover both above and below ground assets (non-infrastructure and infrastructure) using a variety of techniques - e.g. mathematical, statistical, FMECA, dependency and fault trees - in a single application.

PIONEER will be a key tool in the new Asset Management Directorate in Southern Water. It will ensure that asset management is at the centre of the organisation's delivery of services to customers and the environment. The optimal set of interventions to achieve this objective will be identified using PIONEER, balancing risk across the different asset types through an integrated analysis. This will involve embedding best practice processes and procedures, by building a component level risk-based approach to asset management. PIONEER represents a key component in the successful formulation of Common Framework compliant asset plans and their regular update as a ‘business as usual' process. The aim of Southern Water is to achieve industry leading Asset Management well before the next Price Review, PR14.

Some of the key advances offered by PIONEER include:

• Combined underground and overground asset analysis, e.g. water mains, trunk mains, pumping stations and treatment works, so that an integrated optimisation can be undertaken across asset types to balance risk
• A wide variety of model types are supported and accessible for users to review or modify
• User configurable multi-criteria optimisation to meet service objectives, cost constraints, resource limitations, etc.
• Schematic and graphical outputs showing areas of risk and the effects of expenditure on assets
• Recognition of repair, refurbishment and replacement as alternative interventions
• Prioritisation of investment, allowing the best possible level of service to be achieved with the available resources
• Linkage to external asset failure consequence modelling software, such as MISER and other corporate data systems
• Full compliance with the Common Framework and flexible for future developments in Regulation