Sharing failure data to gain insight into network deterioration

“Maintenance and failure records can be used to obtain information about the condition of underground infrastructures. Failures, although in themselves unwanted events, offer a great opportunity to obtain network information, provided that they are registered, collected and analyzed. Dutch water companies generally have low failure frequencies. By sharing failure data between water companies, information about a larger network can be obtained, thereby sooner enabling statistical analysis with reliable outcomes. In order to perform statistical analysis on different data sets, the data have to be uniform. In the Netherlands, a system has been developed to enable uniform failure registration and an exchange of information between water companies. In this paper, Irene Vloerbergh and Mirjam Blokker describe the experience with the development of this system, which aims at application at a national scale, and delineates the hindrances met at the implementation at company level and how these are overcome.”

(Citaat: Vloerbergh, I., Blokker, E.J.M. – Sharing failure data to gain insight into network deterioration – Water Asset Management 6(2010)2, p.9-14)