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Springfield Water and Sewer Commission (Commission) incorporated the recently constructed Backwash Facility into their existing computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) using a digital twin design to build a user-friendly structure, promote maintenance in a timely fashion, and integrate technological advances. Asset data was collected during construction of the facility, taking advantage of the time available to ensure that the structure was in place soon after commissioning. This work resulted in a user-friendly system that provides access to nameplate data, equipment pictures, operation and maintenance (O&M) manuals, preventative maintenance standard operation procedures (SOPs), and access to work order history.
Presented April 4, 2024
ABSTRACT
Springfield Water and Sewer Commission (Commission) incorporated the recently constructed Backwash Facility into their existing computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) using a digital twin design to build a user-friendly structure, promote maintenance in a timely fashion, and integrate technological advances. Asset data was collected during construction of the facility, taking advantage of the time available to ensure that the structure was in place soon after commissioning. This work resulted in a user-friendly system that provides access to nameplate data, equipment pictures, operation and maintenance (O&M) manuals, preventative maintenance standard operation procedures (SOPs), and access to work order history.
System Background
Springfield Water and Sewer Commission is an independent public utility established in 1996. The Commission provides drinking water to almost 250,000 people in the lower Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. Retail water is provided to Springfield and Ludlow, and wholesale water is provided to Southwick, Agawam, Longmeadow, and East Longmeadow.
The Commission's sole water supply is a two-reservoir system located in Blandford, Russell, and Granville, MA. The 2.5-billion-gallon Borden Brook Reservoir was constructed in 1909 and flows into the larger 22-billion-gallon Cobble Mountain Reservoir, constructed in 1931. Water from these reservoirs is conveyed through large-diameter mains to downstream intake reservoirs and treated at the West Parish Filters (WPF) Water Treatment Plant in Westfield. From there, water flows through three transmission mains to the Provin Mountain water storage tanks, where 45 million gallons (MG) of finished water is stored and then out to the distribution system.
At WPF, the construction of the first Slow Sand Filters (SSFs) dates to 1909! WPF relied solely on its 18 SSFs until the Rapid Sand Filter (RSF) plant was constructed onsite in 1974 to modernize the plant to comply with updated drinking water regulations. The SSFs and RSFs now work together as parallel treatment processes, as overlain in a bird's-eye view of WPF in Figure 1.
With the RSF treatment plant being over 50 years old, much of the infrastructure is aging and in need of replacement. The plant's finished water clearwell was repurposed from a 1925-era SSF, which had been in operation for100 years and required replacement due to its questionable structural integrity, issues with rainwater infiltration, and the inability to isolate it from the system while maintaining plant production. In addition to the issues posed by the clearwell, the two backwash pumps used for daily backwashes were unreliable and required frequent maintenance. The original pumps are obsolete and no longer in production, and pumps that could meet similar design criteria in the available space are no longer manufactured. These pumps are relied on daily for the operation of the filters, making it criticalto keep them functioning and in good condition. To alleviate these issues, a Backwash Facility was designed and constructed to replace the clearwell and backwash pumps.
The Backwash Facility was bid as a design-build project awarded to C.H. Nickerson and Tighe & Bond, with АЕСОМ as the Owner's Project Manager. This roughly $25-million project broke ground in 2021 and was completed toward the end of 2023. The facility consists of a pump station directly on top of a 500,000-gallon filtered water storage tank that has two separate chambers, allowing for isolation for maintenance. The pump station contains three backwash pumps, as seen in Figure 2, two process water pumps, two wash water pumps, and two domestic water pumps. It also houses a UV disinfection and chlorine booster system for plant drinking water. These systems range in size from 100 GPM, 10 HP to 7,000 GPM, 75 HP.
As part of implementing this new Backwash Facility, the Commission created a CMMS digital twin during construction. A digital twin? is a virtual, accurate reflection of a physical object/system. It serves as a counterpart to the physical version, used to store real-time data and provide means for, or aid in, simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance. For the Commission's purposes, the digital twin is the digital representation of maintainable assets. This digital representation is used to record asset attributes and maintenance history and to make this information related to each asset in the physical system available from anywhere on a handheld device.
CMMS System
Since 2014, the Commission has used VUEWorks as its CMMS. VUEWorks· is a web-enabled application with modules for managing Assets, Documents, Work Orders, Service Requests and Resources. The Commission used the Asset, Documents and Work Order modules to construct the digital twin for the Backwash Facility.
WorkforceVUE is the mobile application version of VUEWorks, used to execute service requests and work orders via smartphones or tablets, allowing workers to view, collect, and add asset attribute data in the field. WorkforceVUE gives access to VUE Works information on any mobile device, with software that is specially designed around the needs of the field user. This allows the user to increase field productivity using a simple syncing process that integrates any collected data input without internet connection into VUEWorks once the field user is in a connected environment. WorkforceVUE was used for asset data collection for the Backwash Facility because of its compatibility with our specific process.
Project Goals
The primary objective in implementing the digital twin for the new Backwash Facility is to make important data and documents pertaining to the physical assets present in the facility easy to locate and utilize in the field. The main method of record keeping for most of the Commission's capital assets included collecting physical documents such as paper plan drawings, O&M manual books, and binders full of data. With the implementation of the digital twin, all this information can be stored digitally, getting rid of any need to dig through paper documents. The ability to create, assign, view, and complete work orders is also possible using the CMMS, providing a more efficient way of doing so on a mobile device. This ensures that maintenance and repair jobs can readily receive proper documentation on the site while tasks are being completed. This also promotes keeping assets organized and up to date for any future maintenance or repairs.
Building the Digital Twin
Designing the digital twin for the Backwash Facility required re-envisioning the asset hierarchy originally set up in the CMMS. The original design was campus-based, meaning all assets within the West Parish Filters campus were grouped together. To take full advantage of the current technologies, the assets in the Backwash Facility were separated into their own grouping. Several designs were developed and tested before settling on a final structure. This process of developing and testing was done in a development environment, giving staff the ability to explore ideas without impacting the production environment. Involving the plant operators during the design was vital as this not only led to a better design, but also acted as a training tool, making for smoother final implementation.
The digital twin of the Backwash Facility uses an asset hierarchy seen in Figure 3, starting with 11 main systems present in the facility that feature specific assets such as pumps, actuators, gauges, etc, as seen in Figure 4. Under these assets, data pertaining to the specific assets themselves is stored, such as manufacturer, model number, or serial number, as illustrated in Figure 5. Customizable data categories can be added depending on the asset, for example listing the horsepower of a corresponding motor. Much of this data comes from physical nameplates attached to the assets, giving those utilizing WorkforceVUE access to crucial asset data without the need to find it physically. Full O&M Manuals, Work Orders, pictures and other documents relating to the asset can also be found linked to the assets themselves. Asset data is constantly being added and updated.
Collaboration between the IT, Engineering, Operations, and Asset Management departments aided in testing initial versions of WorkforceVUE and determining if this organizational transformation would be a good fit for the Commission. A test environment was created where a prototype could be trialed by the stakeholders. Through trial and error, and feedback about what the easiest and most convenient methods may be, the final version of WorkforceVUE was implemented. Commission staff were given tablets to begin the data collection from the physical assets in the Backwash Facility.
Tablets were selected because it was easier to see the application on the larger screen when compared to mobile phones as seen in Figure 6. It is also available on phones, but typing or reading fine print on a smaller screen has proven to be a challenge.
Lessons Learned
This was the Commission's first implementation of the mobile CMMS application to access facility assets, and with this new design and implementation process came some lessons. In the future, collaboration with the consulting engineering firms early in the design process to organize asset data in а compatible manner, such as an importable spreadsheet, would simplify the process of designing the digital twin.
Existing document-linking workflows were used to add the O&M manuals to the assets. This process involved uploading the document to a network drive and providing a link to the document within the CMMS. While using the desktop application and when testing the mobile application with a partial build of the facility, this method worked well. After going live with the entire facility, it was discovered that the mobile application's syncing process took longer than anticipated. This was due to the large influx of data from O&M manuals for each asset being downloaded to the device. Although load time was short after this first synchronization, it was decided that it was unnecessary to copy the documents to the tablet. To alleviate this problem in the future, these documents will be moved to SharePoint with a corresponding hyperlink.
Conclusion
The digital twin CMMS structure for the newly constructed Backwash Facility is a valuable tool for the Commission's asset management program. It allows easier access to asset data and related documents and provides a more efficient means of documenting and storing asset-specific data, keeping pertinent information regarding repairs or maintenance readily available in the field while this work is being done. WorkforceVUE also allows for the easy completion of work orders, keeping them linked to the asset they belong to and providing the means to assign and complete them smoothly.
The Commission now uses the digital twin of the newly constructed Backwash Facility for day-to-day operation throughout the current water treatment plant and plans to implement this asset management strategy in the future during the design and construction of a new water treatment plant, which will feature hundreds of crucial assets. This new system of collecting and storing asset data allows the Commission to benefit from what modern technology has to offer, granting the opportunity for growth along with the ever-changing digital world.
References
1. https://waterandsewer.org/about-the-commission/ system-description/
2. https://enwikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin.
3. https://vueworks.com/offerings/vueworks-enterprise.
Copyright New England Water Works Association Dec 2024