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Townsville Water

Managers can now make better informed decisions and manual processes have been reduced

Case study highlights

  • Saved time spent on reactive works
  • Improved availability of asset information by 88%
  • Improved recording rate of asset defects from 10 per cent to 90 per cent

The Challenge

After amalgamating with a nearby local government, Townsville City Council identified the need for a single, integrated enterprise system across all of Council and its commercial business units, including Townsville Water.

“We previously had a number of best of breed systems, but accessing the expertise to integrate and manage those different applications was becoming problematic. The benefits of a single vendor relationship came out in our information architecture review,” said Director of Townsville Water Keith Parsons.

“Our asset management processes were manual and tedious. The data we had for works and defects wasn’t aligned with the asset data we had in a different system. Our engineers were spending so much time generating and manipulating the data into useful information, they weren’t able to analyse the results to inform decisions.”

The Solution

Townsville Water implemented TechnologyOne Enterprise Asset Management alongside Financials, Corporate Performance Management and Supply Chain. The enterprise solution provides a holistic approach to asset management incorporating strategic, tactical and operational activities to manage all aspects of the asset lifecycle.

The Outcome

Townsville Water has reduced manual processes and improved productivity, service reliability and the quality of its asset information.

“We’ve rolled out mobile work management, which has allowed us to capture better asset data in the field. We have improved the recording rate of asset defect information on work orders from 10 per cent to 90 per cent,” Mr Parsons said.

“The data is always in real time, which means we can respond to issues quickly. Better asset information has also enabled us to make more informed long-term decisions about investments in our infrastructure, and save money on reactive works.”

Director
Townsville Water

Management are able to make more informed decisions because we've improved our recording rate of asset defect information on work orders from 10 per cent to 90 per cent.

Perspective

Townsville Water is a commercial business unit of Townsville City Council, responsible for providing water supply and wastewater services to the Townsville area.

With over $3 billion worth of assets, Townsville Water was seeking a reliable asset management system that would enable it to improve accuracy and productivity. Townsville Water implemented TechnologyOne Asset Management to allow them to manage end to end business processes in one system.

“We are really seeing benefits of working with a single vendor for all our core enterprise systems, including Financials,
Asset Management and Supply Chain. Our users like the consistent look and feel of an enterprise solution, and it simplifies training and information flows across the system, allowing us to reduce double handling and workarounds,” said Director of Townsville Water Keith Parsons.

Mr Parsons said since implementation, Townsville Water has greatly improved the quality of its asset information.

“We have certainly improved our knowledge of asset deterioration through our collection of data from maintenance activities in TechnologyOne. This has enabled us to understand the impact on asset degradation failure rates and better understand the actual condition of our assets,” he said.

“We’re currently budgeting for over $5 million a year on reactive maintenance for water reticulation mains and service connections, and we expect to see a marked reduction
in that, through a better understanding of the failure
modes and where they are occurring in the network.”

Spotlight

Mr Parsons said the rollout of mobile work management has underpinned a business transformation, enabling the water organisation to improve customer
service and better inform employees.

“Previously, we captured data through paper-based processes, and sent information from the field back to the office periodically to be entered into the system by administrative staff,” Mr Parsons said.

“Sometimes it would take a week or more to get into the system, then it would take time to process that information into analysis and reports for our engineers to start using it.

“By rolling out mobile work management our teams can now enter that information directly into the system. Engineers access the information in real time, so they can respond to issues and make decisions quickly. This ensures a more reliable service for our customers and quicker turnaround times on repairs.

“Our staff also feel safer, more informed and are able to execute their work in a more efficient manner.”

With operational staff embracing the use of mobile technology, Townsville Water is now using its asset data to make more informed business decisions.

“We’ll be making a recommendation to Council soon about next year’s budget, and we’ll be seeking some additional funding to increase our water mains and water service renewal budget,” Mr Parsons said. “Those recommendations are going to be based on real data and evidence we’ve collected, that has all been enabled by the TechnologyOne solution.”

Asset Management

About Townsville Water

Townsville Water is a commercial business unit of Townsville City Council, responsible for providing water supply and wastewater services to the Townsville area. Townsville Water has over 3 billion dollars worth of assets, which includes two dams, 33 reservoirs, weirs, 4400 kilometres of pipe network, and active assets in treatment plants and pump stations.

Townsville Water website

Publish date

17 Nov 2015

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