Analysis of the city’s 3,843 water main breaks over a three year period revealed that smaller diameter mains comprised more than 15 percent of all breaks.
Prior to Maximo and its interface with GIS, the city lacked the ability to spatially view where problems were occurring and where work was needed. Now the Water Department is able to better analyze the nature, causes and locations of any reported problems of water quality.
Staying Connected
In addition to the centralized database that gives field workers access to all of the same information, communication is being improved in other ways, such as how field workers are notified of problems. For instance, urgent requests for critical water work orders that can impact residents, such as pipe main breaks or water quality problems, are now received as e-mails on the smartphones of designated Water Department first responders. Field crews get real-time work order updates and directly update the work order status on their phones without having to go through a dispatcher. This increases the time crews can work in the field maintaining the city’s assets rather than in the office submitting paperwork.
Defining ‘Good’ Service
One key question that Corpus Christi aimed to address when it implemented the work and asset management system was how to define and measure good service levels. With its new system, the city established a framework to define, measure, and deliver good service, focusing on two distinct aspects of customer service: timely service and reliable service.
Using data from the WAMS, the city is able to track response times to citizen calls through the rate of work order status changes, and service reliability by tracking the number of reported back-up calls from specific locations. The city then uses that information to develop a systematic approach to help staff prioritize requests and deploy resources accordingly, based on urgency and service level requirements. For instance, if data shows that specific areas are experiencing sewer back-ups, the city prioritizes those areas.
Measuring Results
Corpus Christi’s water/wastewater department is now able to analyze projects, identify trends and proactively improve the reliability of water systems. For example, analysis of the city’s 3,843 water main breaks over a three year period revealed that smaller diameter mains comprised more than 15 percent of all breaks, allowing the city to formulate a replacement plan to reduce the amount of future system problems while improving service.
Through the call center system, staff identified that 33 percent of the wastewater department’s efforts were spent resolving back-up problems at just 1.4 percent of the customer sites. With this insight, the city was able to implement a repair strategy to resolve these ongoing issues, ultimately reducing costs.