About Southbridge
One of fourteen municipalities in Massachusetts, the town of Southbridge has a population of over 17,000 people who rely on a complex network of water and wastewater systems. With plant and equipment to treat up to six million gallons of water per day, Southbridge water utility department requires an effective asset management system to help maintain and repair its comprehensive facilities.
Challenge
Maintaining and repairing a complex water and wastewater system was proving difficult thanks to time consuming paper-based administrative systems and legacy databases.
Challenge
Before working with AMCS Field Services, the town of Southbridge used a highly manual process to schedule work, collect data, and plan its asset management activities. Across the utility, data handling and work activities consisted of a combination of Excel, paper, and legacy databases.
Unsurprisingly, staff found it difficult to access historical records such as establishing what work had been completed on a specific hydrant over a certain time frame. Maintenance scheduling was also difficult, with gate valve maintenance planned out on a physical, paper map.
As a result, the team needed a more modern approach to record keeping and preventive maintenance.
Solution
AMCS Field Maintenance was selected to manage the department’s preventive maintenance and testing programs and to improve record-keeping. Today, the system is used to monitor a range of assets, including 2,200 valves, 700 hydrants, and 100 miles of water main.
Solution
AMCS Field Maintenance was selected to manage the department’s preventive maintenance and testing programs and to improve record-keeping.
Southbridge adopted the cloud-based software solution in 2016, introducing its digital standard operating procedures and expanding its use over time. Today, the system is used to monitor a range of assets, including 2,200 valves, 700 hydrants, and 100 miles of water main.
Now engineers working on Southbridge’s water infrastructure can retrieve information in the field to help make informed decisions on the spot.
Results
Since utilising AMCS Field Services, Southbridge has streamlined its administrative processes, reducing the total time spent on reporting by 15 to 20% for an administrative manager.
Results
Benefits of implementing the system include a reduction in time spent processing data, as well as lower costs and improved service levels.
Using the data pulled from the AMCS Field Services system, Southbridge has been able to extend the product life cycle of its fire hydrants and reduce the cost per hydrant from $5-7K to just $1K. Southbridge also boasts an out of service level for its hydrants of 0.14% compared to other towns who are up to 10-15%.
Overall, the system’s robust data analytics have increased the department's capacity to allocate resources efficiently, rejuvenating their capability to keep within budget.
Digital solutions for data entry
With digital solutions for data entry and access to records in the field, AMCS Field Services offers benefits for both engineers and managers. “Now engineers can retrieve information in the field where before they’d have to come back to the office to get a record or drawing. In fact, they can access a lot of the info they need on-site because we’ve set it up to work that way.” And the benefits don’t stop there. Using data pulled from the system, Southbridge has been able to extend the product life cycle of its fire hydrants and reduce the cost per hydrant from $5-7K to an astonishing $1K.
AMCS Field Services has been a huge management aid for me with our preventive maintenance and testing programs. Through accurate and streamlined data capture, I now have a really good feel for what's going on in the system, and how we're progressing with our work in the field. I wouldn’t be without it – AMCS Field Services is great.
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