At our branch event in Invercargill on Thursday 24 July at Murihiku Marae.
After a cold frosty start we were welcomed to the marae with a Powhiri. We had a quick bite to eat (thanks to our wonderful sponsors Stantec) then dove into 4 presentations (we had an apology from Katherine Hill-Mirlyaz from Rio Tinto.
Invercargill City Council Asset renewals – it all comes down (to) this
Robert Hayes, ICC and Jeremy Rees, Bonish
Did you know that Invercargill City Council has 6.8 manholes per person? Or that they have 1500m of per 1900’ brick main pipes in use?
Robert and Jeremey provided an insightful overview on the current asset renewal process and state of play. Theregion has a stable population base making the councils main managing and renewing the existing infrastructure.
There is a positive, trustingrelationship between the council, consultants and contractors. Effective knowledge sharing leadsto less interruptions when doing renewals, and ability to build the asset information. One tip shared to encourage better supply of as built information from consultants and contractors was to tie the final contract payment to acceptable supply of this valuable information.
The PowerNet Asset Management Journey
Anton Booyzen, General Manager Asset Management, Powernet Ltd
Anton has been involved in Asset Management before Asset Management existed as a term (his words). A past President of the Southern African Asset Management Association, he sat on the Executive Committee of the Global Forum for Maintenance and Asset Management and is a Certified Asset Management Assessor. Anton was also on the working group developing the ISO 5500X suite of standards for Asset Management Systems.
He walked us through the journey Powernet have been on to gain their ISO 55000 certifications. Powernet at heart is an asset owning company and the journey led them from managing assets to asset management. While being “constructively lazy” they determined the common requirements across all the certifications they targeted, while noting the certification itself wasn’t the goal but an outcome of putting the systems and processes in place.
They have now achieved ISO 9001, 14001, 45001, 55001 and NZS 7901.
A lot of focus was paced on a culture shift from senior leadership through to operational staff with a common goal of realising assets are a means to create value. People, process and culture, and continuous cycle of review and improvement help them keep the focus on everything.
We note that Anton is leaving Powernet at the end of July and wish him all the best for what comes next.
Major Subdivision Developments
Matt Barber, Senior Land Development Engineer, Stantec
Matt from Stantec once spent 6 months hunting pirates of the coast of Somalia, a far cry from working on the Hanley’s Farm development in Queenstown.
Hanley’s Farm is inland from Frankton (next to Jack’s Point) and is an 1800 block development that’s been about 15 year in development. Engineer to the Contract and Representative were onsite weekly at key times leading to a strong relationships and trust, building momentum and meaning they could see first-hand what was happening on the ground.
Compared with smaller developments three major differences were the scale, complexity and co-ordination required.
Interactive Workshop with Taumata Arawai
Ed Yong and Mollie Caruthers
Huge thanks to Ed and Mollie who travelled to Invercargill to run through the Network Environmental Performance Report findings for the 2023-24 reporting period, the second year these reports have been produced.
The session had a focus on data quality and outliers. Data quality has several key dimensions including Integrity, Accuracy, Completeness, Consistency, Validity, Timeliness and Uniqueness. We heard that overall there was more data provided from the year before and that the quality of the data was better. Anecdotally there seems to be a correlation between the quality of the data submission and the quality of the management of the network.
For the 2024-25 year there are some planned improvements to the ingress template provided by Taumata Arowai. The more feedback the regulator can get the better the template can become to help improve the quantity and quality of data collected. In addition a suggestion from Taumata Arowai was to ensure that there is adequate resourcing allocated to complete the template, and that a senior experiences staff member at least review that data before submitting, of not be actively involved in the preparation.
We had some good table discussions to run through:
- What method are you using for your asset condition assessment?
- What method/s do you use for asset condition assessments?
- How do you calculate water loss?
- What is the difference between a connection and a unit?
The question on calculating water loss led to a good robust discussion, and the audience found the practical test on the difference between connections and units was very useful.
Insights on Infrastructure Valuations
Phil Cunningham, Manager – Plant and Machinery Valuations, AGRC, AON
We finished the day with a presentation on insurance and risk from Phil Cunningham from AON. A good refresher on valuation methods and purpose, when to do and the risks of both under and over insuring your assets. He spoke to his experiences in both instances and talked to examples from different asset classes and owners.
