Pipeline asset management by Finnish water and sewage works

Significant investments in maintenance of ageing water and sewer systems will be needed also in Finland to maintain the reliability and value of this buried asset. Investments in rehabilitation of pipelines should be well-timed and allocated that quality of service, i.e. the water quality, price and delivery reliability will stay on acceptable level despite of the limited budget and resources. Four Finnish water and sewage works, a Finnish software company and VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland) are co-operating in a research project known as AssetVesi, the main objective of which is to develop new methods and tools for the asset management of water and sewer systems. The research will be based on the processes and procedures found in the literature, results of previous researches and guides and tools used currently for asset management purposes throughout the world. The data collected by the four co-operating city works will be exploited in the development work. The research will identify the most essential technical parameters of water and sewer systems from reliability point of view. Tacit knowledge in the form of expert data is being used complement the data acquired from the information systems. The main results of the research project will include: procedures and tools for assessing reliability and criticality of water and sewer systems; utilisation methods of expert data and data analyses for estimation of different variables of water and sewer systems; procedures for developing asset management strategies for water and sewage works and a tool for benchmarking technical performance of water and sewage works.