Idaho's Second-Largest City Selects InfoMaster Smart Asset Management Solution

Innovyze Software to Help Prioritize Operations and Maintenance Activities and Extend Lifespan of Critical Sewer Assets

Innovyze, a leading global innovator of business analytics software and technologies for smart wet infrastructure, recently announced that the City of Meridian, ID, has chosen industry-leading InfoMaster software for prioritizing the operations and maintenance activities of its sewer collection system.

Located in Ada County, Meridian is the second largest city in Idaho with an estimated population of 98,300. Its Wastewater Division operates and maintains a centralized wastewater resource recovery facility and over 400 miles of sewer lines located throughout the city. The decision to adopt InfoMaster asset management software helps the City leverage its investment in both Innovyze InfoSWMM wastewater network simulation technology and Esri ArcGIS technology by enhancing them with sophisticated modeling analytics for sewer systems capital planning and renewal.

“InfoMaster enables us to fully leverage our existing GIS and CCTV data along with our InfoSWMM sewer modeling solution and develop a sound and cost-effective strategy for prioritizing our wastewater collection system maintenance activities,” said Emily Skoro, Staff Engineer II for the City of Meridian. “By accounting for the critical risk and consequence of pipe failure, we are able to optimize our capital improvement program and keep our wastewater system operating properly well into the future at maximum cost savings while improving customer service.”.

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, 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 GIS-centric 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 sewer 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 can import hydraulic modeling data 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.

The software also serves as a base platform for advanced asset management extensions including InfoMaster LCCA(Life Cycle Cost Analysis). InfoMaster LCCA lets utilities conduct a wide-ranging risk-based economic life-cycle cost analysis to determine the optimal replacement date for each pipe in the network. This enables users to ensure the smartest distribution of dollars spent on replacement and repair of their assets. It also helps them create reliable, cost-effective, risk-based capital improvement plans that enhance operational efficiency and quality of service and keep assets performing at peak condition while making the most of limited budgets.

“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, Chief Executive 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 ongoing sustainability and resiliency of their infrastructures and their ability to deliver the required level of service at the lowest cost. As a key component of this complex synthesis, Innovyze is proud to continue to be a part of the City of Meridian’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/wastewater utilities, government agencies, and engineering organizations worldwide. Its clients include the majority of the largest UK, Australasian, East Asian and North American cities, foremost utilities on all five continents, and ENR top-rated design firms. Backed by 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 resilient infrastructure systems, and provides an enduring platform for customer success. For more information, visit www.innovyze.com.