Wales & West Utilities solves asset management challenge with Trillium
2 mins read
Wales & West Utilities says it has reduced its asset data analysis from months to mere minutes, by automating asset data reporting and quality processes for 500,000 asset management records.
As a result, the firm, which manages 35,000km of gas distribution pipelines throughout Wales and the South West, is satisfying government and industry compliance and regulatory requirements while ensuring public safety,
"We have some 11 million records covering many thousands of assets, such as gas pipes, pumps, valves and meters," says Martin Malin, business applications manager at WWU.
"To satisfy the requirements of our industry regulator, OFGEM, we must periodically report on our asset management activities, as well as disclose our gas distribution income and costs," he continues.
"We must also show that our operational and financial governance meets defined performance criteria – and it's vital that the information upon which we operate our business and which we report to the regulator, is accurate and proven to be accurate," he adds.
Malin explains that, currently, the company is working towards a five-year plan to replace some £300m of metallic pipes, translating to around 420km of old mains pipes per year, under a Mains Replacement Prioritisation System (MRPS) program.
This software accesses the company's SAP-based asset repository to extract and analyse information, such as where and when pipes were laid, how they were laid, their dimensions, date and material of manufacture, pressure rating, repair history, and other data.
"Any errors or gaps in our asset data could have a serious impact on the safety and cost-effectiveness of our distribution network and ability to comply with regulatory compliance requirements," says Malin.
Hence the store set by good information and, with the sheer scale of the project, automation of that process. Malin says that, following an evaluation and comparison, the Trillium Software System was selected, due to its built-in and extendible data quality rules, as well as its ability to provide insight into accuracy and completeness of test data out of the box.
Implementation took just 18 weeks – including an initial project to validate metallic mains pipes asset data held in SAP, MRPS and also in ESRI (a geographical information system), involving some 500,000 records.
"Using the Trillium system, we are able to define and test for compliance with our business rules," states Malin. "Not only can we now test rule compliance of single attributes, like diameter, but for the correlation of interdependent data values such as pipe diameter, material and pressure rating."
And he adds: "The Trillium system enables us to ensure high data quality on an ongoing basis. "It now takes minutes to check our asset data resources for rule compliance, when a similar exercise conducted manually used to consume months."
