Guidance on the development of
Water Distribution Operation and Maintenance Strategies (DOMS)
A major contract has been commissioned by UK Water Industry Research Ltd (UKWIR) to develop guidance for the formulation of water company DOMS (Distribution Operation and Maintenance Strategies). The contract has been awarded Tynemarch, a leading consultancy providing risk and asset management services to the water industry.
The project entitled ‘DOMS - What Can We Learn?’ will include a review of existing water company DOMS using a standard template comprising a hierarchy of key components and criteria.
The DWI requirements for DOMS are wide-ranging, covering a number of diverse water quality issues, a complex system of heterogeneous assets, and almost the full complement of operational and capital activities. A key expectation is for a more pro-active approach to be taken to maintain all aspects of water quality. The DWI would like the relevant parts of the DOMS to be fully consistent with the risk-based approach described in the capital maintenance ‘Common Framework’ within 5 years. This project addresses the need for water companies to be guided in focussing their efforts to ensure the most important expectations of the DWI are met.
The new guidance will define the key concepts, scope and components of a ‘best practice’ DOMS, and will provide more detailed information on a number of specific topics, including:
the development of an appropriate monitoring programme for DOMS
quantifying the water quality benefits of operational and capital interventions such as mains flushing and rehabilitation
quantifying the costs of operational and capital interventions
quantifying the effect of poor asset integrity on water quality
The draft guidance will be presented at an interim seminar scheduled for October 2005, after which it will under-go testing by a cross-section of companies. Final guidance will be issued by the end of March 2006.
The project is funded jointly by UKWIR, the DWI and the Scottish Executive. The UKWIR Client Manager is Mark Worsfold of Yorkshire Water and the UKWIR Project Manager is Jo Parker of Watershed Associates.
For further information contact:
Dr Jeremy Lumbers or George Heywood
Tynemarch Systems Engineering Ltd,
Crossways House,
54 - 60 South Street, Dorking, Surrey RH4 2HQ.
