AMCL recently supported Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) to accelerate the development of an optimised asset investment plan in the newly implemented Copperleaf Decision Analytics for the remaining three years of the current AMP7 regulatory period (2020-2025).
Like most UK water companies NWG had affordability and deliverability constraints which prevent it from undertaking all the capital investment work that it would ideally like to. NWG needed a way to quickly establish which capital projects to invest in to deliver maximum benefit to customers and deliver on the companies’ priorities and regulatory commitments but within the envelope of the funding available.
A data-driven approach to solving the problem was needed, however, NWG recognised that its existing processes, IT systems and data would make a change in approach in such rapid timescales extremely challenging and external support was sought from AMCL.
As a long-term trusted advisor to NWG, AMCL adopted the role of a technology agnostic ‘Business Integrator’ and worked closely using a Sprint approach with a leading asset investment planning solution vendor, Copperleaf Technologies (chosen independently by NWG).
Over a period of six months AMCL
- Analysed, improved and quality assured 2,664 lines of investment data for 369 individual Water and Wastewater capital schemes and successfully loaded the data into the Copperleaf Decision Analytics application which had been configured to align to NWG’s Value Framework.
- Worked with NWG’s Executive Leadership Team to develop a range of twelve output-based investment optimisation scenarios with varying levels of performance outputs and funding and deliverability constraints.
- Performed 104 separate iterations of the asset investment portfolio optimisation process using the Copperleaf Decision Analytics application and validated the outputs with NWG’s investment planners and Executive Leadership Team.
The outcome from AMCL’s work was a range of alternative, more affordable investment plans with similar or improved levels of AMP7 regulatory performance outcomes as NWG’s existing spreadsheet-based investment plans but at a significantly reduced cost.
Working with AMCL during the Sprints has enhanced the awareness and capability of the NWG Service Planning teams in asset management best practice and in the use of the Copperleaf Decision Analytics application which has been a significant benefit in ensuring high levels of early adoption of the newly implemented Copperleaf application. This project has been a success and collaboration between the AMCL, NWG and Copperleaf teams has been a significant contributing factor in getting NWG to this stage. The NWG, Copperleaf and AMCL teams worked through challenges together and solved problems collaboratively to ensure joint success.
The work was led by AMCL’s specialist Asset Investment Planning Team. To find out more information on the NWG project or how we can help transform your organizations asset investment planning capabilities please read a more detailed Case Study here or contact a member of the team:
