Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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Top Tips for… Building Asset Resilience PR19 will be a considerable step forward from PR14, requiring a significant shi towards greater service resilience and a Totex focus on asset health. Here, Adler & Allan's Tim Farley explains the pivotal role of asset resilience in facilitating this transition and provides his top tips on implementing proactive measures to meet regulatory targets and customer outcomes. The Knowledge: asset resilience 1 Develop a 'safe to fail' plan From a rapidly changing climate that places assets at increased risk of flooding and leakage incidents, to the population growth currently placing ageing infrastructure under increasing strain; there has never been a greater need for water companies to address asset resilience. 'Safe to fail' scenario planning is the first step of this process, requiring that companies identify weaknesses across operational estates before designing and implementing measures that allow assets to fail 'safely' with minimal disruption to serviceability or other consequences that impacts on ability to meet ODIs and deliver customer outcomes. 2 Plan asset restoration measures Based on the assumption that disruptive incidents are ultimately inevitable, asset restoration planning is a critical component of resilience. It is concerned with the practicalities of returning assets to working order in the shortest time possible with use of the fewest resources. Companies need to identify physical vulnerabilities, 'hidden assets', or aged infrastructure that could exacerbate the scale of any damage and pollution caused by potential floods and leakages. Once identified, this vulnerability can be used to highlight the assets with the greatest net impact in the event of environmental incidents, allowing proactive planning for mitigation and recovery. 3 Plan protective measures Effective resilience and planning must build on the assumption that the worst case scenario will eventually occur, but prevention still remains a better option than cure, and water companies must 8 TOP TIPS www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | SEPTEMBER 2017 | 31 Tim Farley, Utility Resilience Adviser, Adler & Allan