Condition Assessment:
Getting to the Heart of the Matter
Jeffrey Sanford — Nov 01, 2007
Think back to your last general physical with your family doctor. He or she likely came into the room armed with some information, asked you dozens of questions about how you’re feeling, and talked about the health concerns that matter most to you for the future. Only after having a relatively detailed health discussion would the doctor begin to listen to your heart and lungs, peer into your ears, tap your knees and order any additional tests.
While that kind of consultative, investigative, diagnostic approach is routinely followed in the health care field, it isn’t applied as often for our most important infrastructure assets. The medical analogy isn’t perfect, but it does underscore how the practice of water and wastewater system condition assessments should begin today: a lot of questions and research first, followed by hands-on, in-the-field testing after key parameters are established and understood.
That can be easier said than done. Through more than 20 years of practice in conducting asset management and condition assessments — helping and learning from dozens of clients along the way — CH2M HILL OMI has developed a six-step approach. It’s a rigorous, data-driven method that works for any asset — underground distribution and collection systems, pumps, water, wastewater, industrial water operations and more — and we recently applied this method to help the City of Albany, Ore., assess its water treatment facilities, lift stations and booster stations over a three-month period. (CH2M HILL OMI’s approach is described in a new book published by the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies and the Water Environment Federation, called Implementing Asset Management: A Practical Guide.) Our approach to beginning condition assessments also follows the guidelines established in 2002 by the Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Inc. and the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia, as well as the International Infrastructure Management Manual, version 2.0
It’s important to point out that condition assessment does not have to be complicated, and it doesn’t require a complete disruption or upheaval of a utility. It’s simply a way to use a practical, knowledge-based approach to improve what utilities are doing today — and to better prepare them for tomorrow. Developing condition assessment questions with definitive answers and analyzing the results enables utilities to budget maintenance costs more effectively and to make better-informed repair and replacement decisions. In essence, utilities or companies obtain a clearly defined, risk-based “roadmap” to follow for the future.
Even more good news: Utilities likely already have most of the information they need to perform an initial condition assessment. A vast number of operations, whether water, wastewater or industrial, have key data about the condition of their assets and the risk that asset failure poses. The problem is that many entities don’t recognize that fact or can’t pull the data together in a meaningful way. This data includes mission statements, capital improvement program plans, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system data, computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) data and other related information.
Here’s how we employ both operational and engineering perspectives to begin an asset management program by conducting a condition assessment.
One: Understand the ‘Big Picture’
While we have created standard, experience-tested tools and processes, we also know that no two condition assessment projects are alike. For this reason, it is essential to begin by understanding the unique aspects of a utility or company, their goals, and the programs and outcomes most important to them.
For example, when the City of Albany, Ore., invited CH2M HILL OMI to help assess the risks within its 16 million-gallon-per-day water treatment plant and 190-mile distribution system, we began not with a visit to the plant but by asking for the system’s “health history.” We received the mission and vision, the capital improvement plan, and the full lists of assets included in its inventory.
Albany is a vibrant, progressive community of about 46,000 people in northwestern Oregon’s Willamette River valley. Sustainability, quality and excellence in service are among the utility’s core values. The system must reliably and effectively deliver water for domestic, commercial, industrial and fire protection use to nearly all areas within the city limits and beyond to adjacent communities such as Millersburg, Ore, and other water districts.
Two: Discuss Perceived Risks
Once we collect and review all of the data, we hold a risk assessment workshop with utility leadership and staff. Through the workshop, we gain several important insights, such as how they run their business, their financial strategies, the level of service they expect, their vision for the future and more. It is important to engage a broad array of stakeholders in this meeting, including the financial leadership of the utility. We have found that having informed, broad-based participation at the beginning makes it easier for utility professionals to balance cost and benefits decisions that need to be made at the end of the assessment process.
To manage assets and evaluate risk, utility professionals must know the consequence of each asset’s failure and how likely that asset is to fail over a certain period of time. So asking “What happens if that asset fails?” leads to discussions about topics such as loss of service, environmental implications, health and safety implications, property damage, revenue loss and more.
Asking “How likely is that asset to fail?” generates discussion about asset condition and performance, effectiveness of O&M protocols, available inventory, capacity and utilization, and functionality.
Three: Develop Consequence/ Likelihood Risk Matrices
With all of this top-level data and staff input, we can begin to build a matrix to reflect consequences and likelihood of asset failure. Data like this is typically loaded into an asset management software system. We call the software we use ACES, or Asset Condition Evaluation System. ACES can use a base of equipment information from a CMMS, or we can create asset register information directly in ACES. It assures that all of the information that a utility gathers and owns can be integrated and assessed in one comprehensive way.
The tool is populated with a pre-defined set of questions that help assess both the physical condition and performance of the asset. A condition assessment question has two components: the question itself and the relative weight of the question, called the condition weight. These questions have been developed through years of condition assessment experience.
And, we customize the tool to reflect the requirements of each utility or company and the current issues important to them. For example, in Albany, as in most cities in Oregon and across the country, investments in the water/wastewater systems have not kept pace with the actual costs to keep these systems reliable. As assets deteriorate each year, the potential for serious failures increase. So during our recent ratings discussion, officials chose to weight “service reliability”at 17 percent (that is, 17 percent of the total score), higher than “financial impact,” which they set at 15 percent.
In other words, as a progressive community, Albany recognizes that it’s more cost-effective to systematically correct its declining infrastructure at today’s costs than to face expensive system failures and even higher replacement costs in the future. After the infrastructure is restored to an acceptable standard, weightings can be changed to support a flattened rate structure that maintains the assets at the standards and service levels that citizens require.
Four: Apply Data to Create ‘Paper Based’ Condition Assessment
These risk matrices and data allow asset management software systems to compile condition assessments “on paper” for any of the included assets. In Albany, we fully evaluated the consequence and likelihood data for 22 lift stations and four booster stations. The data also showed us which stations were more vital than others, so we could rank each lift station and booster station from No. 1 on down in order of importance – before even looking at the equipment.
Typically, utilities do have an understanding of where their high-risk assets are located and which assets are the most vital, but this methodology confirms it in a measurable, defensible way.
In addition, by studying the data and interviewing maintenance personnel, this “on paper” condition assessment helps us, and the client to identify the short-list of assets that must be examined more closely in person. We’ll inspect in more detail any fairly high or high-consequence asset that has frequent corrective maintenance work orders or a high maintenance cost. Similarly, we’ll closely review those critical assets that show no maintenance record or have no apparent maintenance plan
Five: Head Out to the Field
This is where many people think a condition assessment starts. However, in our process, it’s only after collecting and evaluating all of the existing data that a team of seasoned mechanics begins to inspect the assets, conducting the “physical exam” of the “patient” in a way that is as unbiased as possible. Again, it’s important to evaluate assets using carefully defined questions and criteria.
For example, how do you define corrosion? It’s not a yes or no answer, and answers such as No Corrosion, Light Corrosion, and Heavy Corrosion bring evaluator subjectivity into the assessment. To ensure objectivity, as much detail as possible must be provided in the answers. An appropriate corrosion answer would be No Corrosion, Surface Corrosion with No Metal Loss, or Significant Corrosion with Metal Loss.
Less-subjective questions elicit more measurable answers, making it possible to conduct subsequent assessments year to year with the same degree of accuracy. One measurable question we examined in Albany, for instance, was vibration (velocity in inches per second) on all major rotating equipment, such as pumps, blowers and gear boxes. The results were compared to the industry Vibration Severity Chart, which has a range of values from 1 through 5 for very rough, rough, fair, smooth and very smooth (1 meaning new/near new/very smooth and 5 meaning unserviceable/very rough). This allows for definitive, objective answers.
Six: Create Final Report and Roadmap
By blending the software system data with actual asset inspection data, we are able to fully rate and rank every asset within a water, wastewater or industrial water system, reflecting the factors the client defined as vital in the beginning of the process. For Albany, we ultimately assessed more than 750 assets at the water treatment facilities, lift stations and booster stations. The resulting ranking of assets, reflecting all examined risk factors, identified the Top 25 assets in need of attention, repair, or additional investment—all based on qualitative data, not on subjective opinion.
This reporting capability gives utilities or companies the information they need to decide what project to tackle next, or how to most efficiently and wisely spend limited financial resources, or whether to explore water rate increases. Information allows utilities to make difficult decisions with a more realistic understanding of implications to all their assets.
What’s most important: Our six-step approach and automated ACES evaluation tool create a sustainable, repeatable system for continuing to evaluate the physical condition of assets. The utility or company is left with the essential information and tools needed to continue monitoring, planning for, and managing assets into the future.
It’s a little like your doctor finishing your exam and telling you that for optimal health you need to exercise more, eat better, or manage your cholesterol. You have a plan, you see a bright future, but getting there is up to you.
Jeff Sanford is a senior maintenance specialist with CH2M HILL OMI, an operations and maintenance solutions provider whose services include water and wastewater system and staff optimization; contract O&M of water, wastewater and other utilities; and complete municipal operations, including administration, public works and community development. He contributed to the new book, Implementing Asset Management: A Practical Guide, along with CH2M HILL colleague Alan Ispass.
