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Totex approach to asset management key to driving performance

Bentley Systems chief executive Greg Bentley to set out new totex thinking at British Water conference tomorrow.

The critical value of a moving towards a totex approach to the management and operation of water infrastructure assets will be driven home to water industry professionals at British Water’s annual conference this week. 

In particular, the way in which  cumulative advancements in Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology can revolutionise this approach to asset management across the supply chain will be highlighted in a keynote presentation by Bentley Systems chief executive Greg Bentley.

“Totex is the big prize - ultimately engineers want to have a stake in improve infrastructure outcomes,” Greg Bentley.

“Totex is the big prize - ultimately engineers want to have a stake in improve infrastructure outcomes,” said Greg Bentley, speaking to Infrastructure Intelligence last month about the value to this new whole life approach to asset management.

The firm’s recent acquisition of the Amulet Operational Analytics software tool from C3global for predictive and prescriptive analytics will, he said, link information technology of design and construction to the operational technology of sensors, controls and logs.

Bentley will draw on the experiences and opportunities of this product during his keynote talk "Cumulative BIM Advancements:  Asset “Totex” Performance Modelling" at the British Water asset management conference tomorrow.

“Amulet is really going to help a lot,” he said in February. “We want to improve infrastructure – the totex problem – we are not a design software company but an infrastructure software business,” explained Bentley. 

During his keynote delivery Bentley will set out his thinking around: 

  • The increasing advancements in BIM applied to the water and wastewater industry
  • Management of totex with advanced performance modelling tools
  • Government mandates and their approach to advancing BIM

“In AMP6 BIM has the potential to mature into a business as usual approach unleashing the asset management potential linking operations with asset creation and capital maintenance,” Andrew Cowell, MWH

To date Bentley Systems has ventured into the area of asset performance modelling with the Optram product which is specifically for the rail sector. Amulet should enable this thinking to be rolled out and linked to its existing modelling software. 

Greg Bentley will draw on the experiences from the use of Amulet by South Australia Water to help bring together the operation technology with IT to predict demand and to predict the weather so as to find out how much water will be needed and how often its desalination plant needs to function.

He will also draw on the experience of its use to drive a Totex approach by National Grid for integrity management of all its transmission towers and is used to analysis for example repainting schedules. “The job of the asset manager needs to span both (operational technology and information technology] but they have been separate until now. There is value to be gained by combining these and that is the purpose of Amulet”, said Bentley.

BIM to ALIM – Asset Lifecycle Information Management

There is still time to book your place on Tuesday 14th April 2015. The venue is the 1874 Suite, Aston Villa Football Club, Trinity Road, Birmingham B6 6HE. Details here

The British Water conference is sponsored by MHW and is designed to help asset management professionals from across the water sector to understand the advantages of using technology to drive a while life approach. 

As the second major conference for BIM in the water sector this conference recognises the significant additional benefits could be realised in the water sector by applying BIM – Building Information Modelling – to the whole life of an asset.

ALIM – Asset Lifecycle Information Management, says British Water, is more than just the next buzzword and the 2015 Conference will look at the benefits of ALIM and its implementation. It will explore how the water sector is using BIM and what still needs to be done and ask if and how BIM and ALIM can support Totex.

According to Andrew Cowell, MWH technical director and chair of the conference, BIM in AMP5 has largely been deployed as pockets of excellence in capital delivery projects, 

“There are some great individual exemplar projects however these often do not connect to the water company data systems,” he said writing in Infrastructure Intelligence last mointh.

“In AMP6 BIM has the potential to mature into a business as usual approach unleashing the asset management potential linking operations with asset creation and capital maintenance,” he added. “This embraces the full lifecycle in Asset Lifecycle Information Management (ALIM). BIM can be a catalyst to prompt a more mature asset management and information management approach which moves the water sector into the digital age.”

There is still time to book your place on Tuesday 14th April 2015. The venue is the 1874 Suite, Aston Villa Football Club, Trinity Road, Birmingham B6 6HE.

www.britishwater.co.uk/events/bim-today-alim-tomorrow-delivering-a-totex...

If you would like to contact Antony Oliver about this, or any other story, please email antony.oliver@infrastructure-intelligence.com.