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Data Driven Decision Making
Objective 1: Use Standards & Data to Drive Decision Making
Plant operator monitors treatment processes at Lake Mary Water Treatment Plant.
Relevant Standards
- Secure community support for appropriate investment in water resources and infrastructure
- Emphasize standards in decision making and communications
- Use data to enhance operational performance and decision making
- Maintain involvement in statewide water industry association
Background
The Division’s Business Values provide a framework for planning and investing appropriately in water services and the environment. Appropriate investment is defined by specific standards, or levels of service. Planning and proposed investments should be based on the confluence of these standards and accurate data, specifically related to environmental conditions and the condition of water assets.
Challenge/Opportunity
Flagstaff Water Services needs to prioritize the process of clarifying its standards, highlighting standards in communications and decision making, and enhancing the data available for decision making. With respect to data, the current challenge is to define the most relevant data and develop more automated ways to collect, store, organize, utilize, and share this data.
Timing Concerns
This is an ongoing but important effort to enhance performance and decision making.
Water Services Strategic Plan 2025 | ||||
Objective 1: Use Standards and Data to Drive Decision Making |
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Reporting Period: January - June 2021 |
Reporting Period: July- December 2021 |
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Specific Responses
| Champion and TEAM
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Accomplishments |
Accomplishments |
Next Steps |
Increase emphasis on standards in problem solving at all levels of the organization, effectively building a culture based on the Division’s standards | Water Services Director, SCADA IS Manager | Using standards and data to identify two important infrastructure needs in Water Reclamation and Stormwater to move forward. | Identified areas within the Division that are at risk of falling below standards, and taking steps to mitigate them. | Work on a presentation to City Council and Administration to bring awareness of these needs and lay ground work for identifying funding strategies. |
Preface all planning discussions and investment proposals with the relevant standards |
Water Services Director | Using standards and data to identify future needs and create a history of activity for anaysis | Using data to determine capacities needed for new infrastructure | Installing additonal flow meters, sensors and programs to track activity in all areas water. |
Develop a critical information/data list for key functions, including water production, maintenance, water usage, water quality, stormwater management, and wastewater treatment |
| A list of data has been started for some sections, but not all. The help of the sections managers will be needed to accurately identify all data points | Expanding GIS system to include equipment in facilities, and along distribution/collection lines to determine flows and process needs ahead of entry. Water reclamation created a presentation for Council of the needs at the water Reclamation facilities | Develop a breakdown list of the source of data. Some sources will produce data that multiple sections will find important. An example of this is a VFD Water Services will develop a standard for VFDs including what data we get from them. This will be useful for Water production, Wastewater production and water Resources |
Automate the work-order system and the Bi-Weekly Reports |
| Some work orders and inspections can now regenerate in the time period specified by the managers that use them | Work order management inspections on valves in reclamation plants and reclaimed system. | Wastewater basins are next. Work Orders will be set to auto create. The biweekly reports need to still be identified and automated |
Use GIS, CMMS, SCADA, and other SMART technologies to optimize and automate the collection and sharing of data and information and billing for those services |
| GIS and CMMS continue to move into the treatment plants with the addition of new infrastructure drawn in GIS. The ability to create inspections and workorders for Valves in the wastewater plants is 90% complete | Water Reclamation started to use CMMS for Valve data. Equipment controls monitoring in water/wastewater and reclaimed systems using SCADA | Foundational SCADA issues will be defended and developed into addressable projects. CMMS will continue to move into the Wastewater plant with the addition of Pumps, motors and VFDs |
Maximize the use of GIS to organize data with respect to geographic location |
| Adding new Collections, Distribution, reclaimed and stormwater data to our GIS from As- builts and field collection has resumed | Adding As-builts intot eh GIS system, working with Distribution crews, collections and at Plant assets, with follow up field verification. | Adding details about our treatment plants into the GIS. Fixing errors in our GIS data Moving to the ESRI utility Model. |
Employ accurate, organized usage data methods for billing and planning needs |
| 1. Completed a surface water hydrology report based on 10 years of gauge and infiltration data for stormwater planning. 2. We continue to use the best data available to us. | Installed upgraded software at load out stations. Collecting finer data at the meter level, daily data usage to model rate structure | Finer Usage data needs to be collected, GIS errors will continue to be identified and corrected. Errors in SCADA Data needs to continue to be verified and corrected. |
Water Services Strategic Plan 2025 | 2020 Accomplishments | |||
Objective 1: Use Standards and Data to Drive Decision Making | Reporting Period: January-June 2020 | Reporting Period: July-December 2020 | ||
Specific Responses | Champion & TEAM | Accomplishments | Accomplishments | Next Steps |
Increase emphasis on standards in problem solving at all levels of the organization, effectively building a culture based on the Division’s standards | Water Services Director, SCADA IS Manager | Establishing and updating standards in each section. WW SOP/Stds actively updated, Reg Compliance SOP/Stds actively updated, Dist and Collection SOP/Stds in progress, SW SOP/Stds under way. Stormwater Section to work with consultant on SW stds. SCADA section working to establish standards over next 6 months | Completed updating standards in Stormwater Section. John Ruetten assisted SW staff in developing a nice summary of the community standards. Water Resources is the next section to to work with the consultant on establishing this sections standards. | |
Preface all planning discussions and investment proposals with the relevant standards | Have not had planning discussions in this timeframe during Covid pandemic. | |||
Develop a critical information/data list for key functions, including water production, maintenance, water usage, water quality, stormwater management, and wastewater treatment | ||||
Automate the work-order system and the Bi-Weekly Reports | Automated the weekly section reports on Sharedrive | |||
Use GIS, CMMS, SCADA, and other SMART technologies to optimize and automate the collection and sharing of data and information and billing for those services | Using GIS data to provide emergency notices to focus streets/neighborhoods/areas. Implemented new collector app and tablet for gathering observation well depths in water production. Implemented CMMS in chlorine gas detector calibrations across all water production facilities. | |||
Maximize the use of GIS to organize data with respect to geographic location | Water Services has been unable to fill vacant GIS Specialist position since Feb 2020 | |||
Employ accurate, organized usage data methods for billing and planning needs |