Case Study
Well Standardization Tools Support Reliable and Uninterrupted Water Service in a Major District
When it came to getting potable water to customers in a major district, decision-makers had to quickly analyze several dozen sites and hundreds of pump options to make informed decisions that would maintain potable water service. Pressed for time and drowning in data points, the district engaged Kennedy Jenks (KJ). Using a streamlined, shareable tool, KJ automated 35,000 analyses that led to quick decision-making and sourced pumps that kept the water flowing to customers, all within the district’s budget.
At KJ, we provide digital tools that explore effective solutions to our clients’ complex asset management challenges. Extended drought has exacerbated the challenges of delivering a reliable water supply to customers throughout California. With a wide variety of well types and pump sizes across its water supply system, a major district (the District) was faced with the high cost of maintaining and replacing pumps to continue to supply its customers with potable groundwater without encountering budget shortfalls.
The District engaged KJ to help identify inefficiencies as well as the types of pumps required for various uses throughout the District, whether residential, business, or municipal. Increasing pump standardization for more rapid replacement was considered a possible solution. The goal was the reliable and uninterrupted service of potable water to the District’s customers.
The Challenge
The utilities department for the District provides 46 billion gallons of water to more than 130,000 customers each year. As a water provider with reliability and supply chain challenges, the District has a mandate to eradicate water accessibility issues, meaning that it must rapidly and seamlessly address equipment failures and institute remedies. With aging infrastructure a major challenge for many municipal water agencies, and with supply chains disrupted by external affairs, the District was experiencing long wait times for spare parts.
The District was formed through a series of mergers between smaller water districts over the course of a half century. Well infrastructure was developed by these predecessor agencies, each with their own approach and preferences in the design of groundwater wells. The result was dozens of wells with significant variances in the configuration of pumping units (vertical turbine vs submersible), manufacturers, models of pumps, and well attributes such as casing size. This lack of standardization in well design made it difficult to stock standardized spares to provide quick repairs to wells and avoid extended down time. Recent delays in the supply chain highlighted problems with the status quo, such as lead times of up to 12 months to receive replacement pumps and motors from vendors.
Due to the concern that customers would, at times, not have enough water when they needed it, the District’s managers realized a compelling need to find better ways to address the reliability of access to potable water.
With a total of 69 active wells in their system, developing a streamlined and optimized sparing plan was a challenge.
The District sought to better understand their options for standardizing pumps and motors to serve the diversity of well types, frame sizes, horsepower ratings, and pump model types when selecting and purchasing assets to control the velocity and flow of groundwater to destination sites.
They also needed to budget carefully with regard to pump maintenance and the stockpiling of replacement pumps. Spare pumps incur a variety of costs while in inventory, and without regular maintenance, their performance can decline even before installation. Stocking the right replacement pumps, in the right quantity, was as important as identifying the criteria for their specific uses. The District needed readily available and easily adaptable replacement pumps to quickly remedy system failures and avoid interruption of service.
The Solution
KJ developed comprehensive digital solutions that allowed the District to readily access important and reliable data to inform their decision-making and generate optimized solutions to their need to identify standardized equipment. This included digital tools to analyze the efficiency of multiple types of water pumps compared to the possible solutions available on the market. The various pumps were evaluated for appropriateness to location and water needs. KJ analyzed various types and brands of pumps and compared the pumps’ records against the actual sites throughout the region where existing pumps were located.
The District has 69 wells, with more than 500 possible types of pumps to compare to each site. To analyze all of the possible combinations with associated pros and cons of each could consist of 35,000 different analyses – a daunting task. To streamline this process, KJ developed a system that automated the analyses based on data input to a sophisticated MS Power BI platform designed to consolidate vast amounts of data into a digestible report. The resulting dashboard facilitated informed decisions regarding which pumps the District should buy to improve the reliability of the water system, have spare pumps at the ready for immediate installation, and stay within their budget.
Using the best collective fit of pumps to wells freed up KJ engineering time and allowed rapid repeatability when new SCADA data or additional pump curves from manufacturers were available. This facilitated informed decision-making on pump selection for the District to maintain reliability of the water system, and quantified the spare pumps needed at the ready for immediate installation, within their budget.
The MS Power BI tools that KJ developed were aimed toward determining the match between pumps and historical pumping data, thus reducing the time required for manual inspection. Once pumps were matched to the historical data, a standardized stocking solution could be developed. Based on the available data, a stocking solution using 10 pumps would require an exponentially high number of possible solutions, a figure so large that it is not feasible for a human to reach an optimal solution.
KJ solved this big data challenge through novel use of available software. MS Excel features were used to optimize the problem and make it easy to identify solutions. Using an algorithm, a digital tool was designed to be accessible, scalable, and sharable. Through data input, the tool used logical analysis to determine the needs of each well site and cross-check with the track record of pump types in order to arrive at acceptable pump solutions for each site. The team then identified manufacturers for the pumps and used the maintenance and cost data for each pump brand to provide pump recommendations to the District for each well, at the optimal price and long-term budget.
The District used the tool we built for them to facilitate decision-making as to which pumps to stock and can continue to use this tool to make future decisions. These analyses have allowed the District to make smart purchasing decisions, achieve significant savings, and improve the reliability of water supply to its customers.
The Result
For this client, we built a tool in MS Excel so the client could change the inputs and find a variety of solutions to fit their needs. We wanted a tool that was accessible to them, and easy for them to use or pass on to a coworker without the limitation of a learning curve. As conditions change and new wells are constructed, they can continue to use this tool to make future purchase decisions or adjust their stocking plan.
Based on the comprehensive data compiled by KJ, our client was equipped with the knowledge to successfully identify and stock a standardized selection of pumps to serve most of their wells. This made the process of repairing equipment failures much faster, resulting in far less disruption of water service to customers. Additionally, our comprehensive research of pump manufacturers, including the pros and cons of each pump type and available manufacturer procurement arrangements, meant that the District could make smart long-term purchasing decisions. Because they were able to plan and purchase in advance, they weren’t beholden to supply chain issues. Our client was able to save money, while providing superior service to its customers, and keep the water flowing.