Knowledge base Author bios Affinity Water and PA Consulting won the IAM team achievement award at the IAM Asset Management Excellence Awards 2022. James Curtis and Jennifer de Vries explain more about the winning teams project and collaboration and the Bengal Tiger Affinity Waters assets include 16,900km of mains network, 91 treatment works and 1,400 employees. Its region is also unique, because it is home to some of the worlds most endangered chalk streams. These streams are rarer than the Bengal Tiger and they are in danger of drying up because of a reliance on chalk groundwater for water supplies. However, too much of the water from these streams is being wasted. To save these streams from the brink requires change, and this is why Affinity Water has committed to ending unsustainable abstraction from chalk groundwater, reducing leakage on its network and working to restore rivers. Affinity Water is also targeting achieving carbon net zero by 2030, and reducing the volume of water that is being wasted on its network is key to this treating water is very energy intensive, uses vast quantities of consumables, is costly, and can negatively impact the environment. Affinitys customers are also acutely aware of the impact of the business on the environment, and during the 2019 price control (PR19), they showed strong support for Affinity Waters focus on leakage reduction, expecting the company to lead the way. These streams are rarer than the Bengal Tiger and they are in danger of drying up because of a reliance on chalk groundwater James Curtis is Head of Leakage Operations at Affinity Water. He has more than 20 years asset management experience in utilities, primarily in below-ground assets and leakage control in the water industry. Jennifer de Vries is a utilities asset management expert at PA Consulting, a member of the IAM, and an elected member of the IAM Council. She combines her background of civil engineering with her strategic business experience to support organisations across a range of sectors including water, electricity, defence and telecoms deliver complex asset management-based programmes of work. A challenging target During AMP6 (asset management period 2015-20), Affinity Water was the leading company in leakage reduction (with the largest percentage of leakage reduction). It has committed to a 20 per cent reduction by the end of AMP7 (2020-25), one of the industrys largest reductions. The first year of AMP7 was particularly challenging for Affinity to meet its leakage target in line with the 20 per cent trajectory because not only was it the highest single-year reduction target of all the five years, but it was also coupled with the difficultly of operating in a pandemic while keeping people safe. This meant that, despite achieving a 9.7 megalitre per day (Ml/d) reduction in year one, Affinity started the second year of the AMP behind where it and its customers wanted it to be. As a result, it was imperative that Affinity Water made a significant reduction against its AMP7 target in year two, to recover from year one difficulties. Watch James Curtis talking about the project Tackling a wicked problem Recognising the complexity of tackling leakage and the need to achieve a marked step change in leakage performance to meet its challenging target, Affinity Water in conjunction with supply chain partners and, notably, PA Consulting devised a detailed programme of work. The programme leveraged the multiple interventions that can be made to help tackle leakage, including: reducing the rate of leakage breakout with prevention measures reducing the flowrate of leaks on the network, thus reducing the volume leaked per leak reducing leak awareness time/time to locate leaks. The programme devised the sequence of delivery activities that provided the optimal blend of leakage solutions through balancing the cost, performance and risk outcomes of each option against each other. This trade off, however, was made more complicated by the fact that many of the quick and easy wins had already been implemented in previous AMPs, ultimately narrowing down the potential solution options further and requiring the implementation of more innovative technologies and approaches. The agreed optimal blend of solutions comprised 14 key workstreams delivered by the Affinity Water Leakage Team. They stretched the full breadth of asset management and included a mix of customer, innovation, digital and traditional asset-based solutions. The right team Despite most COVID-19 restrictions having been lifted in year two of the AMP, continued labour shortages coupled with the impact of people being required to isolate after they had come into contact with someone who then tested positive for COVID-19 meant that the identified and agreed asset management activities and solutions had to be flexible and adaptable while prioritising safety. It was only with a diverse team that Affinity Water, supported by PA and the wider supply chain, could deliver such a substantial programme of work. Operating together as a single combined team allowed Affinity Water to optimise its leakage response and efficiently deliver for customers. The team in its widest sense was made up of individuals from across the Affinity Water business, including those from its customer experience directorate, asset management directorate, procurement directorate and regulation directorate. All those called upon from technicians, call handlers, modellers, data scientists and analysts to senior management rallied around a common cause that was driven by the hands-on sponsorship from the executive team and board for example, by providing advice and guidance monthly at their Executive Management Team meetings and on-the-ground assistance in solving issues. Operating together as a single combined team allowed Affinity Water to optimise its leakage response and efficiently deliver for customers The benefits of a united team The breadth of the programme team and the support of the senior leadership has meant that the programme has really helped break down siloed working within the business. The solutions delivered required a systematic and joined-up approach for lengthy periods of time, naturally building long-term trusting relationships between departments and teams. There were also technological benefits to the business from the leakage team delivering the programme. The innovative technologies used within the programme have been trialled in such a way that they can now be rolled out further across the network to wider business benefit. The benefits of the leakage programme were not just benefits to the business. While the business is now much closer to achieving its end of AMP7 20 per cent reduction target, in line with customer, regulator and stakeholder expectations, the main benefits of the leakage programme are to the wider environment and society. After this truly collaborative effort, the team achieved a leakage reduction of 16.6 million litres of water (thats enough water every day for nearly 110,000 people equivalent to an area the size of Basingstoke, Bedford or Lincoln). This has resulted in Affinitys lowest-ever level of leakage, positioning it strongly for the rest of the AMP. About Affinity Water Affinity Water is the largest water-only supplier in the UK, committed to delivering a high-quality water service to all of its customers. It provides, on average, 950 million litres of water each day to a population of more than 3.8 million people in parts of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, the London boroughs of Harrow and Hillingdon and parts of the London boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing and Enfield. It also supplies water to the Tendring peninsula in Essex and the Folkestone and Dover areas of Kent. Additional benefits Achieving this leakage reduction, has helped: reduce reliance on abstracting from the precious chalk streams in our region and the potential harm we may cause to them reduce the energy used for treating water that is then wasted leaking into the ground reducing the companys carbon impact reduce the volume of chemical consumables used for treating water that is then wasted leaking into the ground reducing our carbon and wider environmental impact. Programme outcomes Specifically, the programme managed by Affinity and PA delivered: Customer-side leakage policy change and implementation driving a change in the Affinity Water customer leakage policy, such that Affinity repairs more of the leaks found on its customers properties for free, therefore incentivising its customers to repair them. Pressure management design, installation and commissioning of 16 new pressure management schemes on the network to reduce the number and flowrate of leaks. The secondary benefit of this activity was the potential for it to reduce the number of bursts on the network. Intensive leak detection undertaking 252 additional deep District Metered Area (DMA) surveys. Situational Awareness Tool development developing an AI solution using pressure loggers on the network to increase the insight Affinity can provide to its technicians. Providing a real-time view of the network pressure helped Affinity identify potential leaks more efficiently. This involved the installation of more than 1,000 new pressure monitoring points. Advanced active leakage control deploying new, and optimising existing, acoustic logging assets through industry insight and trials of alternative materials, using technicians and third-party suppliers. Satellite leak detection implementation of innovative satellite technology to identify likely leak locations, helping active leakage technicians target zones for activity more efficiently.
