Software Helps Inter-Municipal Sewer Company Leverage Data for Smarter Operational and Capital Planning
MWH Soft, a leading global innovator of wet infrastructure modeling and simulation software and technologies, today announced Belgian wastewater utility Riobra has successfully implemented the powerful interconnectivity of MWH Soft’s InfoNet solution to plan, construct, renovate and maintain a number of key Flemish wastewater networks.
Riobra is an inter-municipal company responsible for the sewer systems of 24 Flemish municipalities. The company’s main tasks include creating new house connections and maintaining networks to ensure they function well. Operations also encompass combined, storm and foul water sewers, pumping stations, small-scale wastewater treatment works and stormwater retention basins.
Central to Riobra’s approach are its GIS system and its enterprise administrative database, iSeries. The company’s goal is to keep these systems up to date so that it can provide accurate information to its customers — its clients and the inhabitants of the 24 municipalities — at all times.
Leveraging the data from these sources, in combination with InfoNet, the company has developed an investment and renovation plan to determine where new sewers are needed and existing sewers must be renovated.
The first step in the process is determining the physical location of new sewers and the location of new house connections. The sewer database is being updated with information from this survey, and the data will in turn shape maintenance plans going forward.
An inventory of a proportion of pipes and nodes across the 24 municipalities produced a great deal of information to be input into the GIS database and iSeries. The work began with zoning plans, which show whether houses are connected to the public sewer system (zones depicted in green) and which of them have individual wastewater systems (zones depicted in red).
The company surveyed all pipes and nodes in the green zones with high flow rates and lower flow areas with pipe lengths greater than 160 feet (50m). Where the total length of pipe was under 160 feet (50m) but over 30 feet (10m), a simple visualization of the infrastructure was deemed sufficient. Pipes with low flows and shorter than 30 feet (10m) were not included.
In the red zones, the reverse applied: where the total pipe length was greater than 50m, the company created a visualization, and where the length was less, the pipes were not registered.
For the inventory, Riobra undertook a GPS survey of a third of the manholes and associated pipes across its areas, underground surveys of all nodes (equating to around a third of the manholes) and a survey of all hydraulic structures.
InfoNet is also used to develop the investment and renovation plan, allowing Riobra to indicate project areas and identify investment programs. Again, themes are used to simplify this process – for instance, projects due to be constructed in 2011 are colored brown. It is therefore easy to find the location of the various projects and their due build dates on a city plan.
For all projects, as-built data and images — critical elements in undertaking new house connection work — are connected to the project areas as hyperlinks. Riobra uses both InfoNet and iSeries for this work, because it needs to collect administrative data and know the geographical location of the house connection.
Data can be imported and exported between InfoNet to iSeries, so that both databases hold relevant administrative and geographical information. New house connections are created in InfoNet using two connection nodes and a length of sewerage. Some of the data fields draw information from iSeries, and the quality of the data is checked before importing it into InfoNet and flagged according to its quality. The new connection request application form for householders is connected as an ancillary hyperlink, along with photographs of the finished work.
Riobra devises maintenance plans in InfoNet, by creating thematic maps. For example, pipes where debris depth is greater than six inches (150mm) are highlighted. These maps can then be used to plan how often a particular subset of pipes is cleaned. This data is imported from the operational MWH Soft InfoWorks CS model.
Riobra undertakes preventative maintenance such as sewer cleaning and surveying as well as reactive maintenance — resolving incidents such as collapses and pipe blockages. By adding data on such incidents to the InfoNet database, the company can determine if a pattern of collapses is occurring on a particular pipe run and consider renovation or replacement of a failing section.
“MWH Soft best-in-class technology continues to demonstrate its effectiveness in allowing utilities to better manage, operate and maintain their wet infrastructures,” said Andrew Brown, the company’s EMEA Regional Manager. “Users continue to select InfoNet for a range of compelling factors, including speed; ease of use; short learning curve; comprehensive feature set; and superior technical support. We are pleased to see progressive utilities like Riobra continue to expand their commitment to using world-class software tools to benefit their customers.”
About MWH Soft
MWH Soft is a leading global provider of wet infrastructure modeling and simulation software and professional solutions designed to meet the technological needs of water/wastewater utilities, government industries, and engineering organizations worldwide. Its clients include the majority of the largest UK, Australasia and North American cities, foremost utilities on all five continents, and ENR top-rated design firms. With unparalleled expertise and offices in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, the MWH Soft connected portfolio of best-in-class product lines empower thousands of engineers to competitively plan, manage, design, protect, operate and sustain highly efficient and reliable infrastructure systems, and provide an enduring platform for customer success. For more information, call MWH Soft at +1 626-568-6868, or visit www.mwhsoft.com.
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