Insights

Making the decision on which smart tool to invest in to help you with your water network pipe replacement program requires copious amount of research and input from experts. The truth is that predicting pipe failure is a complex task, and without a solution that provides you with comprehensive information on your assets, you’ll continue to pay more for replacing pipes when failures occur.

The question we need to ask is: what capabilities does the solution need so that we can minimize the number of failures?

• 1. Real value probability
  Make sure your solution is able to calculate a real number for the amount of failures you might experience over a specific time period. Better yet, look for solutions that identify specific assets likely to fail. Some solutions provide risk scores of 1-5 that aim to give you an overall sense on the health of your asset base, however they fail to show a detailed breakdown of where your problems may lie.
• 
  2. Accuracy
  Go with a product that can use your historical failure data and then predict the actual failures that took place. As the user you can then take the results and compare them to what actually happened to validate the accuracy of the product. For example if last year you only had 10 failures and the product calculated that last year you had 100, then something isn’t adding up.
• 
  3. Time shift study
  Similar to point 2, go with a provider that is willing to put their product to the test and perform a time shift study that will look at your historical data to showcase the power and effectiveness of their solution.
• 
  4. Custom-fit
  Select a product that can offer a customer model to suit your data and your needs. Every water utility is different, with its own systems, geography, and properties. This is why it’s very important to have the ability to set your requirements in the tool to let your data tell your network’s story. So your organization isn’t constrained by standardized issues that are very common to see in some of the products available on the market. The only thing that should matter is your data.
• 
  5. Visualization
  Most data-driven applications nowadays equip you with the ability to visualize your data so that you can analyze the information more easily and make informed decisions more quickly. Whether it’s reviewing through charts, tables, or analyzing a GIS mapping feature that shows you where your assets are, being able to visualize your assets will save you a lot of time and hassle.
• 
  6. Optimizer
  Check to see if your solution uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to calculate optimized plans. All you need to do is upload your data, then sit back and relax while the tool works its magic. Based on the probability of failure calculated with the data uploaded, the tool will propose different plans for you to consider in your water replacement maintenance program.

With the help of Arcadis Gen’s Water (AI) Pipe Predictor solution, your water infrastructure can be proactively preserved and pipe replacement costs minimized. Our team of experts is available to take you through the platform and share with you how we can help you meet both your business and sustainable goals. Contact us.