Sydney Water Operational Audit 2011/2 - IPART - NSW Government

3.2 Factors Affecting Compliance
There were no known external issues that may have substantially impacted on Sydney Water’s
performance with respect to this Licence Part.
3.3 Infrastructure – Compliance
Sydney Water has been assessed as having demonstrated Full Compliance with the
requirements of this Part of the Licence. Sydney Water has demonstrated that its assets are
managed consistently with the asset management framework described in clause 3.1.2.
Supporting commentary for specific Clauses is provided in Appendix E (Clauses 3.1.1 and
3.1.2).
3.4 Discussion
3.4.1 Asset Management Framework
Sydney Water has a long history of high standards of asset management recognised by
external parties. Sydney Water presented as evidence a comprehensive suite of plans,
strategies, and controlled documents covering all classes of assets. Sydney Water did comment
that they will change the format of the “State of the Assets” report, replacing it with a series of
shorter, more forward, looking documents. Nothing in the Framework had been altered that
required notification to IPART.
3.4.2 Reservoirs
As a result of the previous year’s Audit, the Auditor was required to review water quality issues
related to storage tank integrity and the implementation of the associated condition framework.
A detailed response to the previous Audit findings was presented by Sydney Water. The records
of the reservoir roof and site inspections (both hand written forms W5 and associated
photographs) were demonstrated to have been successfully entered into Maximo.
It was noted that reservoirs have their own asset management plans that set out a proposed
program of investment. Sydney Water stated that some roofs are known to be coming to the
end of their economic lives. Sydney Water also stated that during the development of business
cases for the replacement of reservoir roofs, alternatives to replacement are explored,
especially as those works will require the site to be out of operation for an extended period. The
consideration of these temporary works as a permanent solution is a quite proper and correct
approach. Any temporary network configuration that would cope with this extended down time
should be considered as a permanent option.
It was noted that internal inspections of reservoir condition are held in a separate, tailored
database provided under licence by the retained contractor. The database was identified as
ASAM (acronym unknown). It is probably efficient for the contractor to supply updates to the
information in their standard database format, however Sydney Water stated that they do not
store that internal asset condition information in Maximo. This means that Maximo is not the
single point of all asset information; data held separately for internal condition could be lost
should the ASAM database not be maintained or the licence not paid. This also raises the
possibility that business cases for works on a reservoir will not capture the overall condition of
the structure. This could result in:
Inaccurate prudency and efficiency arguments in any business case;
Poor scoping of work requirements;
Inadequate budgetary requirements; and,
GHD | Report for Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal - Operational Audit of Sydney Water Corporation, 23/14602 | 13