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Enhancing Project and Asset Information Management for Thames Water’s Capital Investment Programmes
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAM)
- Sensors - Utility Meters
Applicable Industries
- Buildings
- Transportation
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Intelligent Urban Water Supply Management
- Leakage & Flood Monitoring
Services
- Training
The Challenge
Thames Water, the UK’s largest water and wastewater services company, faced significant challenges in managing information for the delivery of their capital projects. Prior to the implementation of TWEXnet, information management was not well controlled. Delivery partners were based within Thames Water offices and information was shared via email, CDs, and shared drives. However, after a change in the business model in 2005, the partners were based back in their own offices and the use of multiple systems to share information proved to be neither productive nor secure. Thames Water works with a large number of external contractors to deliver its capital investment works, which involves significant volumes of information including contract documents, design files, and general correspondence pertaining to some 1500 live projects. Each party is responsible for keeping related documentation and activities up to date, essential to the decision-making processes involved in a project. The staff churn that occurs on all construction projects means that having a controlled central repository for information is absolutely essential to ensure efficient delivery and contractual and legal compliance.
About The Customer
Thames Water is the UK’s largest water and wastewater services company, serving over 14 million customers across London and the Thames Valley. The company works with a large number of external contractors to deliver its capital investment works, which involves significant volumes of information including contract documents, design files, and general correspondence pertaining to some 1500 live projects. Thames Water has been a customer of GroupBC since 2005 when they identified the need for better information management to support the delivery of their capital programme. The BC Enterprise solution, known in-house as TWEXnet, has evolved into a fully integrated programme and information management solution, including tendering, delivery process and assurance, document and drawing management and most recently, a visual geospatial representation capability.
The Solution
Thames Water procured TWEXnet, a project extranet that evolved into a Common Data Environment (CDE) to manage data related to built assets. The platform stores and manages project documents, drawings, and information, including workflow functionality to enable issuing for information, checking, review, or approval. Information is now available from a secure central location, with all the basic document management functionality such as version control, access rights, and audit trails as well as BC’s advanced functionality including saved searches, reporting capability, drag and drop multiple files and folders, and task dashboards. Thames Water worked with GroupBC to develop an integrated process management and quality assurance module to give a visual traffic light view of project requirements and compliance. They also implemented the BIM viewing module, which enables them to view drawings and 3D models and associated asset information without the need for the native software. More recently, they have implemented the GeoLink module which provides a visual representation on an Ordnance Survey map interface of their project locations together with over twenty switchable layers of environmental and heritage information.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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