How To Manage A Hydrant

Transcription

1 USING MOBILE GIS TECHNOLOGY TO GATHER COMPREHENSIVE ASSET CONDITION DATA OF BRISBANE & IPSWICH S FIRE HYDRANT NETWORK Daniel Faccio 1, Malcolm Potts 2 1. Queensland Urban Utilities, Brisbane, OLD 2. Thiess, Brisbane, QLD ABSTRACT Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) is South East Queensland s largest water retail-distributor supplying water and wastewater services. QUU maintains over 100,000 hydrants across its service area through its Civil Maintenance Delivery team. To ensure QUU achieves the service standard for fire hydrants that was agreed between QUU and Queensland Fire & Rescue Service (QFRS), QUU has implemented a Fire Hydrant Maintenance Program. This paper details how QUU and Thiess worked collaboratively to develop a solution using GIS (geographical information system) software technology on Thiess own field mobility device, in this case the Apple ipad. QUU s utilisation of private industry enabled innovative and cost effective solutions with little or no direct costs for QUU. INTRODUCTION Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) is South East Queensland s largest water retail-distributor supplying water and wastewater services to customers within the Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Somerset local government areas. Figure 1 shows QUU service areas QUU is responsible for: provision of water and wastewater services for more than 1.3 million residents, management and maintenance of $4.2 billion of infrastructure and assets, provision of specialised recycled water services to businesses, management and issuing of accounts for water and wastewater. To ensure QUU achieves the service standard for fire hydrants that was agreed between QUU and Queensland Fire & Rescue Service (QFRS), QUU has implemented a Fire Hydrant Maintenance Program. The fire hydrant maintenance program encompasses 3 key maintenance streams:

2 Hydrant Flow Tests, Hydrants inspection, cleanouts, and cat eyes reinstatement, Planned corrective maintenance from defects identified from the above 2 programs. To deliver this program of works, QUU and Thiess worked together to move from a paper based method of data delivery to a full mobility platform with a GIS software solution on an Apple ipad platform. METHODOLOGY/ PROCESS Hydrant Standards QUU hydrant installations align to the South East Queensland (SEQ) Water Supply and Sewerage Design and Construction Code. The SEQ Code is a consolidated set of design and construction standards for water supply and sewerage infrastructure in the South East Queensland that came into effect on July (Link: Figure 2 shows a typical hydrant mark (cats eye) and hydrant installation from the SEQ Code 1300 series drawings Figure 3 shows a typical hydrant mark (cats eye) and hydrant installation from the SEQ Code 1300 series drawings Maintenance Drivers QUU maintains its hydrants through its Civil Maintenance Delivery team. During the early stages of the hydrant maintenance program, QUU consulted with QFRS to understand their concerns and establish a maintenance program that would meet the service standard. The initial program focused on maintaining the Cats Eye which is the reflective blue marker on the road. However, as the hydrant maintenance program progressed and the relationship between QUU and QFRS matured, the focus expanded to include in addition to Cats Eye replacement, hydrant cleanout, inspection and corrective maintenance. These discussions concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the QUU and QFRS which clearly articulates the expectations of each entity. QUU subsequently engaged Thiess who have a long term contact with QUU for the Provision of Water Asset Maintenance Services to develop a plan to achieve this. Overview of the Service Standards The MoU set some key service standards that QUU had to achieve. This included: All hydrants are inspected and cleaned on a 2 year cycle All hydrant cat eyes are inspected and replaced if damaged or missing Corrective maintenance is undertaken based on priority of: - Responsive Maintenance (5 days), - Planned Maintenance High Priority (1-3 month) or - Planned Maintenance Low (6 months) The MoU set out an agreed reporting framework to between QFRS and QUU. It included the failure modes and priority in which the work was to occur:

3 Table 1 details the reporting fault codes and terminology RESPONSIVE PLANNED MAINTENANCE HIGH PRIORITY R1. Hydrant leaking R2. Multiple consecutive Hydrants: requiring cleanout R3. Multiple consecutive Hydrants: not found not accessible by standpipe, e.g. too deep, buried or lugs broken H1. Single Hydrant not found H2. Hydrant buried H3. Cleanout PLANNED MAINTENANCE LOW PRIORITY L1. Replace Cats L6. Bolts corroded/rusted Eyes/Markers L7. Hydrant Base (Spring L2. Replace Hydrant Top/Mushroom Ball cover (lid) L3. Replace Hydrant Concrete Surround H4. Too deep (unable to fit a Hydrant Stand Pipe) (Collar) H5. Lugs broken H6. Bolts badly corroded/rusted/worn through H7. Reset Hydrant Box - bitumen/concrete (raise, lower or realign) L4. Reset Hydrant Box - grass/dirt (raise, lower or realign) L5. Lugs corroded Valve) corroded/rusted Figure 4 shows a before and after hydrant clean Figure 5 shows a second example of a before and after hydrant clean

4 Table 2 shows examples of Hydrants in Good to Fair Condition Not Requiring Repair Works New Hydrant - Coated PVC Shrowd SS Hex Bolts and New Hydrant - Coated PVC Shrowd SS Hex Bolts and SS Hex Bolts and Traditional brick surround SS Hex Bolts and Traditional brick surround Traditional brick surround Square Bolts and Ok Rubber Seal Table 3 shows example of Hydrants in Poor Condition Requiring Work and Critical Action Fair Lugs Deteriating Square Bolts and Requires Work L6 - Painted Fair Lugs Poor Hex Bolts and Ok Rubber Seal Requires Work L6 Fair Lugs Poly or PVC Shrowd Rusted Square Bolts / Requires Work H6 Poor Lugs Hex Bolts and Detriated Requires Work H6 Poor Lugs Critcal Square Bolts and Leaking Requires Work R1 Maintenance Delivery To avoid the risks of managing such large volumes of important data it was vital to develop a solution that did not involve multiple spread sheets, hardcopy plans and photos showing the location of the relevant fire hydrants. A paper based process required significant administration by both QUU and Thiess and the quality of data captured would be poor. QUU and Thiess collaborated to avoid failure and move towards a solution that was cost effective, measurable and returned accurate high quality data. The collaboration determined a GIS based solution provided on a mobile ipad platform was necessary. The benefits from utilising a GIS software solution for hydrant maintenance delivery included: Better forward planning which has resulted in improved delivery. High quality and accurate data that was gathered via means easily accessible and able to be interrogated by QUU. Allows critical data evaluation, manipulation and long term system integration as QUU migrated to the ESRI GIS platform. Streamlining of the audit process with photos and data collected from every hydrant, Reduced administration costs. Greater work productivity from field crews as they were able to use the mapping function to coordinate their work schedules and to ensure that they completed work in the most efficient geographical way. THE TECHNOLOGY Thiess GIS team (based in Brisbane) developed an app that enables QUU assets to be located and a condition assessment to be recorded (along with photos) on Thiess own mobile computing device, in this case an ipad. Thiess crews can inspect and undertake condition reporting of QUU's assets with photos and this is reported back to QUU on their GIS database system using ESRI. Prior to this innovation by Thiess Services the paper trail and risk created by errors in the field with hard copy plans and work-packs was substantial. For it to be successful it was vital that Thiess and QUU set up the structure of the database and information needs correctly. This ensures the integrity of the data and the subsequent analysis of

5 that information demonstrates the fit for purpose condition of hydrants to the QFRS and is valid justification for any maintenance work required. The solution enables field crews to report information direct to the GIS database, which is presented as live maps and reports to authorised staff via any desktop or mobile platform at any time. The GIS database can be fully integrated to QUUs GIS system. It saves time for data extraction, transformation, and data loading processes. QUU also have access to the GIS system via a web-portal that Thiess has set up. This enables QUU to see the latest data and reports. All the data is backed up to a cloud server and a separate archive daily. The information is also submitted to QUU monthly on a portable hard-drive for uploading to their GIS system. With respect to network coverage in the field, more than 90% of the current working area has internet coverage. Where crews are working in an area with no internet, the field crew still are able to complete their tasks and update the information fields and photographs in the ipad and when the crew returns to areas with internet coverage the database is synced. RESULTS/ OUTCOMES Together QUU and Thiess were able to develop a solution that achieved the objectives of the hydrant maintenance program and its first year target of 50% (approximately 50,0000) hydrants having been inspected, cleaned out, and where needed the cats eyes reinstated, in 10 months. Thiess were able to achieve QUUs objectives through: Utilising the GIS software in planning locations that Thiess could strategically target day works and plan for after-hour and Sunday works. Undertake desktop audits on the collected data for every hydrant. The viewing of the data on computers has in turn reduced field activities. Reduced administration costs by significantly reducing the amount of data entry needed. Coordination of work as well as selfregulation and managed productivity. Workers in the field were able to use the mapping function to coordinate their work schedules and to ensure that they completed work in the most efficient geographical way. Resources required for data management and analysis are reduced as the system is automated. Reduced need for traffic control due to better forward planning saving QUU additional costs. Improved safety due to better understanding of road types, hydrant locations and communications back to the head office. The technology also enabled QUU to opportunistically gather additional information such as fire ant mapping right across its business. This extensive library of data is now with QUU. This tool has been developed further since and is now used by Thiess for: Thiess hydrant maintenance, trunk main maintenance, water off notice delivery, and pressure and flow testing crews. These innovations were delivered at no cost to QUU. Also available directly on the ipads for crews are all work permits (including traffic, QUU shut plans, Permit-to-Work and Dial Before You Dig (DBYD), Work Method Statements, QA test plans and material safety data sheets. Safety, quality and environmental audits are undertaken by crew managers on ipads and information relayed directly back to head office. Real-time tracking of crews Instant and single point of communication and updates High standard of quality control End-of-month administration reducing the invoicing burden on QUU. Greater reporting functions such as: - water off times - water off notice delivery times - errors in QUU s GIS data discovered in the field These improvements are a credit to the positive working relationship between Thiess and QUU Civil Maintenance Delivery. QUU and Thiess have regular meetings to discuss, plan and improve performance and quality. Thiess is presently trialling an expanded ipad application for whole of maintenance cycle of QUU s water reticulation network including its Responsive Maintenance teams. The main driver and development of this has been to supply QUU with more accurate data to improve strategic decision making and maintenance spending. CONCLUSION In conclusion, the innovative approach developed by Thiess in conjunction with QUU to gather the asset condition of QUUs fire hydrant network has been very successful. It has enabled QUU to

6 achieve its service standards with QFRS in a very accurate and cost effective way. A collaborate approach between QUU and Thiess has realised an innovative solution that has transformed QUU s approach to undertaking planned maintenance. Figure 8 shows a screen shot of the web based portal. It shows the suburb boundaries and QUUs hydrant network and water reticulation system. The assets can be interrogated for all the information gathered from the field. It can be updated live. Figure 6 Hydrants showing up as either inspected or not inspected on the ipad. Figure 7: A Thiess employee completing data on his ipad on one of the 100,000 QUU hydrants.