Looking after the three waters for 225,000 ha of the Canterbury plain is a big job. Waimakariri District stretches between the Pacific Ocean and the Southern Alps and the communities which make it home are serviced by Drinking water, Wastewater and Stormwater systems of various size and complexity. When Colin Roxburgh was tasked with collecting asset data for the Waimakariri District Council, he knew it was a challenging task that lay ahead. As the Water Asset Manager, Colin needed to find a way to show the complicated connections between thousands of water assets. Mapping the many different reservoirs, generators, tanks, valves, and pumps dotted throughout the district is an important, complex task. Fortunately, virtual site visits and visual documentation in Trakk have made the job a whole lot easier.
An intuitive way to navigate Three Waters assets for the
Waimakariri District
The answer to Colin’s water asset data challenge came as a surprise by-product of working with Mappazzo. Initially, Mappazzo, a sister-company of Trakk had been tasked with collecting the asset data and providing Process and Instrumentation Drawings. “Before the project, we knew we had lots of gaps in the data,” explained Colin.
Up until that point, Colin and his team had been relying on a traditional mix of software systems to manage three waters assets. These included GIS, SCADA and an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform called TechnologyOne (Tech1). The Tech1 system was used as the Asset Management System (AMS) for all of council’s assets, but Tech1 also satisfies financial, HR and other administrative functions, so it’s not focused on Assets.
Unsurprisingly, since the Tech1 system covered such a large range of functions, it is a complex tool when used for everyday asset management tasks. Colin’s team found it hard to quickly get the asset information they needed from thousands and thousands of asset entries. Whilst in theory Asset Managers, Design Engineers and Operational Staff could access these databases themselves, the systems were not designed to to show assets visually and not that intuitive.
But then, unexpectedly, the team were presented with a very simple software solution. One that made them feel like they were in-field.
“After Kelly Norris implemented Trakk software as the asset data collection system for the Mappazzo project, the app was presented to us as a way to view that asset data. What soon became really obvious to us was that easily viewing the data was actually a really valuable output of the project,” says Colin. “One of the main benefits to us is having software that is that intuitive.” “Within a few clicks, you can zoom from a map of the whole Waimakariri Council district down to the site and assets you want.” Colin added.
Removing guesswork from stakeholder meetings
with virtual site visits
Whilst Colin’s team could immediately see the benefits of Trakk, the importance of the software to the rest of the Council was demonstrated during an important design review meeting.
Various stakeholders were present at this meeting, many of whom had never been to the site under review. The meeting included Taumata Arowai, our water services regulator in New Zealand. Taumata Arowai dialled in from Wellington, and Colin’s team called in from the office in Rangiora. However, the site was located elsewhere in the district. As you can imagine, trying to verbally describe the Headworks assets caused some confusion and uncertainty. But, thinking quickly, Colin opened Trakk software and shared his screen to show a virtual ‘walkthrough’ site tour of the water plant. Suddenly everyone was on the same page about the site conditions.
Importantly, everyone could see the value of visual records. Not to mention the simplicity of the Trakk Assets software. Naturally, Council internal management has to be selective about the software they adopt. But it was clear from that one Three Waters meeting, how much visibility and certainty Trakk could provide everyone involved.
Streamlining workflows by empowering council teams
With every member of the team now able to easily access virtual site tours, the three waters team found yet another benefit . Generally, team members were finding the existing asset management system not especially user-friendly. So the office-based engineers and designers had become accustomed to making enquiries on other council staff to get reliable information about their assets.
In the past, it was common practice for people to pick up the phone to ask questions directly to a plant operator. Alternatively, designers would email a request for detailed information to the database administrators, which took up everyone’s valuable time.
But, now armed with a way to conduct virtual site visits as if teams were at the site themselves, everyone found the extra time and delays waiting for answers fell away. Colin explains, “The benefit now is that it’s pretty easy to navigate to what you want, much more efficiently than what we had before.” All this makes a more streamlined workflow and a significant improvement in productivity.
Future of water asset management in North Canterbury
With Trakk Assets now a must-have software on the Waimakariri District Council devices, more functionality will be brought into their daily operations in due course. Colin is mindful of the broadened scope of his own work now that he is Project Delivery Manager for Three Waters, “When we get a bit of breathing space, we know there are further benefits we can explore. Such as how we can use Trakk to help our team log defects or report on scheduled services.” Colin confirms that the Trakk team have been helpful and responsive throughout. Namely, they’ve helped with some new features like a SCADA dashboard integration. This integration is becoming increasingly popular, particularly with the operational team.
The team at Trakk Assets has been inspired by the enthusiasm of the council team at Waimakariri District. Moreover, the on-ground impact which has been realised. As the founder of Trakk, Kelly Norris puts it, “The Waimak project has been a great success. Colin and the team have had some great wins using Trakk and I’m looking forward to see what we can achieve together in the years to come.”