City Of Oakland, California, Adopts InfoMaster Analytics-Driven, Risk-Based Asset Management Solution

Innovyze Software to Help Optimize Sanitary Sewer Infiltration and Inflow Reduction Program and Meet EPA Regulations

Innovyze, a leading global innovator of business analytics software and technologies for wet infrastructure, recently announced that the City of Oakland, California, has chosen industry-leading Innovyze InfoMaster software to help optimize its sanitary sewer infiltration and inflow (I/I) reduction program.

Oakland is the third largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth largest in California, and the 45th-largest in the U.S. with a population of 413,775. Its underground contains over 930 miles of sanitary sewer pipes, the approximate distance from its City Hall to Denver, Colorado. The sanitary sewer system includes 31,000 structures and seven pump/lift stations. The City is responsible for the public sanitary sewer main pipes that carry waste to the treatment plant, while the East Bay Municipal Utility District is responsible for sanitary sewer treatment and disposal.

“InfoMaster gives us the critical powers of risk-based asset integrity and mathematical modeling while fully leveraging our existing geospatial asset management solutions and hydraulics and CCTV data,” said Jimmy Mach, P.E., Supervising Civil Engineer for Oakland. “These powerful capabilities will enable us to accurately assess the condition and performance of our sanitary sewer system, effectively solve our I/I problems, prioritize and optimize our capital planning expenditures based on rigorous analytics, and meet regulatory requirements.”

Globally, aging wastewater infrastructures are rapidly deteriorating and sometimes failing — with potentially dire human, environmental and financial consequences. As this aging process continues, the need for effective risk-based asset integrity management becomes more pressing. Maintaining infrastructure assets in fit-for-purpose condition throughout their target lifespans is a primary goal for utilities worldwide, and selecting the right pipes for rehabilitation at the right time is one of the main challenges of asset management. An understanding of when and how pipes will fail, combined with a quantitative grasp of the underlying causal factors likely to induce failure, are essential in formulating a targeted approach to rehabilitation, repair and renewal planning.

Certified by NASSCO PACP, MACP and LACP V6.0, InfoMaster is the leading software choice for utilities faced with optimizing their sewer infrastructures and eliminating unwanted overflows. It can accurately estimate both the likelihood and consequence of failure for each individual sewer main in the network, as well as the amount and time of occurrence of future failures. This critical information facilitates a proactive approach to identifying and managing these high-risk assets to help preserve structural integrity and keep the network operating well into the future. It also eliminates reactive maintenance: waiting for pipe failures to occur before repairing.

InfoMaster comprehensive risk-based asset integrity modeling techniques provide reliable pipe failure predictions, even for limited failure records and application to different pipe materials. They include the non-homogeneous Markov Chain (NHMC), non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP), Linear Extended Yule Process (LEYP), Cox proportional hazards model, and advanced time-based probabilistic Weibull and Herz models. These techniques can be effectively used to evaluate a variety of pipe characteristics related to failure, and can consider all pipes in the network, not just those with breaks or other failures. Armed with these powerful models, utilities can now accurately assess the aging processes of their network pipes and estimate their lifetimes and structural/functional failure potential and distribution over time. Such capabilities can greatly assist utilities in assessing their pipes’ propensity to fail, identifying critical ones (more prone to failure), prioritizing their inspection and determining rehabilitation requirements. This proactive “fix before break” approach can help utilities extend the useful life of their assets and improve their performance at maximum savings.

The InfoMaster product suite automatically imports InfoSWMM hydraulic network models and facilitates significantly better planning and control by giving utilities critical insight into all enterprise assets, their conditions, aging and work processes. It also features direct integration with Cityworks (Azteca Systems Inc., Sandy, UT), Cartegraph (Dubuque, IA), infraMAP (iWater, Irvine, CA) and Lucity (Overland Park, KS), and can interface with other leading maintenance management software (CMMS). InfoMaster enables utilities to use information and analytics in new ways to drive higher productivity and quality while managing costs and increasing operational flexibility.

The program’s intuitive interface; easy-to-use functionality; and rich analytical, graphing, and reporting capabilities save utilities considerable resources. With minimal effort, users can quickly pinpoint assets at the greatest risk of hydraulic and water quality deficiencies or structural failure, identify the best possible improvement alternatives for optimal system performance, prioritize improvements based on available budget, and realize significant cost savings.

“Strong asset performance modeling and capital planning capabilities are critical components of a smart enterprise asset management strategy,” said Paul F. Boulos, Ph.D., BCEEM, Hon.D.WRE, Dist.D.NE, Dist.M.ASCE, NAE, President, COO and Chief Technical Officer of Innovyze. “InfoMaster delivers detailed, accurate analyses and comprehensive custom reports that help utility managers make better, more informed decisions on when to repair, replace, or rehabilitate their critical sewer network assets, eliminate potential overflows and optimize efficiency, maintenance and hydraulic performance. It also supports them in developing reliable long-term funding strategies for such projects. These advantages help utilities ensure the long-term sustainability of their infrastructures and their ongoing ability to deliver the required level of service at the lowest lifecycle cost. As a key component of this complex synthesis, Innovyze is proud to be a part of Oakland’s success.”

About Innovyze
Innovyze is a leading global provider of wet infrastructure business analytics software solutions designed to meet the technological needs of water and wastewater utilities, government agencies, and engineering organizations worldwide. Its clients include the majority of the largest UK, Australasia and North American cities, foremost utilities on all five continents, and ENR top-rated design firms. With unparalleled expertise and offices in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, the Innovyze connected portfolio of best-in-class product lines empowers thousands of engineers to competitively plan, manage, design, protect, operate and sustain highly efficient and reliable infrastructure systems, and provides an enduring platform for customer success. For more information, visit www.innovyze.com.