Prioritisation of capital projects using advanced analytics for a water utility

Utilities like the City of Fort Myers in Florida face daily challenges associated with infrastructure that is expensive to operate and maintain while providing high quality services. The City of Fort Myers was issued a consent order to improve system performance due to aging infrastructure, population increases, climate change impacts and limited resources.  
 
The City of Fort Myers needed to provide a clear direction for short, medium and long-term capital improvement programs and management strategies that would help them better understand their asset data. Traditionally, asset data was stored in Excel files and was not comprehensive, leading to errors and missing information. 

These challenges made capital improvement program (CIP) investment decisions more complex as it depended on asset knowledge. The CIP based business plan helps answer the questions of “What are we going to do and why?”; “At what cost and how can we fund it?”; and “What is the impact on the level of service (LoS), rates and financial conditions?” 

Without the ability to answer these questions adequately the City of Fort Myers would not realise the value necessary to address the most pressing needs to meet the conditions of the consent order. 

GHD and GHD Digital’s advanced analytics team was engaged to develop a web-based platform to help answer these questions. The above requirements necessitated the development of a robust system equipped with comprehensive functionalities to enable utilities to make informed decisions in near real-time. This led to the creation of a cloud-based decision support system known as Dynamic Risk and Engineering Analytics Management System (DREAMS). The DREAMS provided the City of Fort Myers with the visualisation and implementation of a dynamic capital planning module that comprised of risk model, hydraulic, financial planning and project prioritisation frameworks that gave them easy access and enabled them to make data-driven decisions more quickly. This web-based system integrates spatial component data with easy-to-understand visuals to compare different scenarios. 

The dynamic dashboard features enable asset managers to know detailed information about assets in real time. This visualisation component tells the story of the respective system effectively to aid in decision-making. We developed the risk modelling assessment framework as part of a master plan for the city. The goal was to dynamically update the model to include asset condition assessment results based on asset management principles and hydraulic modelling that visualised the results. 

In phase one, we provided near real-time updates of projects that would be included in the CIP and management strategies to plan for the next 20 years. The designed platform integrated results from systems such as, geographic information systems (GIS) and asset management system software, while harmonising data and completing a data quality assessment to better leverage the city’s current projects and resources to fill those gaps.

In Phase two, we developed the planning module for the sewer systems and completed the risk modelling dashboard for the potable water system. This phase fully developed the web application to dynamically integrate, visualise, and prioritise CIP and projects based on new developments. Our digital solutions also provided the City of Fort Myers with:

• Enhancement of risk management through the automatic updates of risk modelling scores, which reflect near real-time changes in project prioritisation.
• The facilitation of strategic decision-making by allowing the comparison of project priorities across different planning horizons, providing foresight and facilitating long-term planning. 
• Flexibility in financial planning by enabling the movement of projects across different planning years, allowing for adaptive rescheduling based on the available annual budget.
• Financial accuracy and preparedness through the auto-calibration of the cost matrix, adjusting for project prioritisation and anticipated cost escalation.

The data also helped the city answer important questions like, “Is the flow of water appropriate?”; “Is there enough capacity within our current system?”; and “How can we build resiliency into our system to accommodate the increased pressure on our infrastructure?”

The DREAMS offered the City of Fort Myers with a data centric approach to capital improvement and asset optimisation. The overall system and other asset management techniques provided asset optimisation and reduced operating costs and operational risk for the city. Now, the city has harmonised data that was customised and structured, meeting their current and future community needs and challenges. 

When decision-making relies on deeper and more complex insights, a streamlined and automated solution is needed to improve business operations and profitability. DREAMS signifies the development of an adaptable and scalable decision support system. This system leverages advanced technologies to deliver sustainable short-term and long-term solutions, which can be replicated across various geographies and industries, ensuring continued applicability and relevance. 

Contact us to learn how advanced analytics can help you democratise data to build resilience within your water systems.