WaterSight - Consequence of Failure

Product(s): WaterSight
Version(s): 10.00.
Area: Documentation

Overview

The goal of this module is to help the user in the calculation of the consequence of failure for each pipe, and with that identify the pipes that can cause major impact (or consequences throughout the system) when they fail. The impact or consequences can be in terms of number of customers with no supply, critical customers with no supply (such as hospitals), flooded customers (in case a big pipe break causes major flooding), decrease in pressures, impact at the traffic level (for example bursts repair in main pipes that cross or pass near by main roads can cause a significant impact on the traffic), or even higher costs of repair. 

The calculation of the consequence of failure for each pipe is based on some user defined criteria or consequences. As the consequences that can drive consequence of failure, as well as the method to assess (or score) those can vary significantly from utility to utility, from zone to zone, the solution offers a flexible and customizable workflow that can be adapted to any utility requirements.

How to start

Note: steps 1 to 3 are common to the Likelihood of Failure calculation workflow, so in case you already did the LOF analysis, you can skip to step 4.

1. Upload a pipe shapefile

Make sure that at least a pipe shapefile containing all the relevant information to be used in the Capital Planning has been uploaded, under Administration > GIS

After that, and the very first time the user opens the COF page, an empty page will be displayed with the following message: “No aspect Created, To create a new aspect go to [New].”

Note: In case you get an Error message instead, please check if the pipe shapefile contains at least a column named ID, as this is a minimum requirement.

Please make sure that your pipe shapefile contains all the relevant information, as this will be one of the sources for the capital planning analysis.

2. Append Model Results to Pipes Shapefile

It is also possible to include model results statistics calculated within WaterSight into the Capital Planning analysis. For this, just make sure that after uploading the pipe shapefile (and in case a hydraulic model is already uploaded and running) you click in the "append model results button" located inside the Admin >> GIS. 

After defining the time period for which model results will be calculated and the mapping fields, automatically these results will be available inside the capital planning module. More information on appending model results, click here.

3. Upload other geospatial/contextual information

Other contextual or geospatial information may be relevant for the capital planning analysis. In this scope, the application allows to perform geospatial queries between the pipes shapes and other types of shapefiles such as proximity or intersection with streets, type of soils, water bodies, etc. The user can add any other relevant shapefile to be used in the capital planning, inside the Admin > GIS. More information about geospatial queries can be found here.

4. Creating Aspects or Consequences

The first step involves the user defining which are the key criteria or consequences that can drive the consequence of failure, taking into consideration both the data available as well the specific context of the utility and the region. Some common consequences that can drive COF can include:

  • Number of customers without supply or/and low pressure
  • Number of critical customers without supply or/and low pressures
  • Number of customers that are flooded or number of flooded assets (in case a big pipe break causes major flooding)
  • Proximity to main roads (having a main road flooded by a pipe failure or the impact of repairing a burst can cause major impact on the traffic)
  • Proximity to repaved streets (in some utilities, non-repaved streets get prioritized over recently repaved streets when a pipe repair is needed)
  • Costs (some failures or bursts have higher repair costs associated, and this can be one aspect that can drive the prioritization)

Examples above can be measured more directly or indirectly inferred (for example flooding is usually indirectly assessed by analyzing pipe diameter as bigger transmission mains failures tend to cause more flooding than smaller pipes) and the user can define any consequence that is considered relevant taking into consideration the data available, based on the original information provided in the pipe shapefile (see point 1 above), from the hydraulic model results (see point 2 above) or other contextual information (see point 3 above).

To start creating a new consequence, the user should click on the “New” button located in the top of the page:

 

There are two different ways how consequences can be created:

Decision Tree Aspect or Consequence

Clicking on New > Decision Tree will redirect the user to a new page. To return back, the user can click on the back arrow located on the top. For more information about creating and scoring a Decision Tree consequence, please click here.

Predefined Aspect or Consequence

When clicking on New > Predefined a pop-up dialog will appear to configure the Predefined Consequence. To return back, the user can click on the close button (x) located on the top right of the po-up. For more information about creating and scoring a Predefined consequence, please click here.

5. Analyzing Consequence Results

Once a new consequence is created (using the decision tree method or by creating a predefined one, see above), it will automatically be listed in the Consequence of failure page, under the Consequences section.

Consequence Thumbnail tile

Each consequence created will have associated a small pie chart, with a quick indication of the number of pipes that fall in each COF grade (default is red – high COF, yellow – average COF, green – low COF), and, in the right side, the name defined by the user for the consequence and the method that was used (decision tree or predefined).

 

Consequence Summary Panel

By clicking in the consequence thumbnail tile, a preview panel will be displayed on the right side, containing a mini-map with the pipes classified accordingly with the grades as well as an indication of the length of pipes that fall into each grade category.

Consequence Results Page

The user can click on “Open Results” from the summary panel (see above) to jump to the results page.

Another option is by clicking in the more button (…) inside the aspect thumbnail tile, that will be visible once hovering the tile. Click “Results” and a pop-up with several options will be displayed, including drilling into the results page.

 

6. Combining Different Consequences by Creating a Cumulative

After the key aspects or consequences are defined, and scores for each pipe and aspect are calculated (using Decision Tree or Predefined Method) the user needs to combine them together to build his multi-criteria decision ranking system. The multi-criteria decision ranking system is composed by the different key aspects or consequences (and scores) as well as the weight for each consequence. The final pipe score is obtained doing a weighted average of the individual pipe scores for each consequence.

To do this, the user should click in the New button located on the top of the page, and then choose the cumulative option.

Once clicking in the cumulative, the user will be redirected to the cumulative page where he will be able to define which consequences will be considered and the weights or importance for each one.

The software is flexible enough for the user to be able to include every key aspect in the same decision ranking system (mixing risk - likelihood and consequence of failure - with asset performance) or by creating a ranking system to separately assess likelihood of failure (LOF) and another ranking system to assess consequence of failure (COF). Then the user can combine both LOF and COF results to calculate the risk score using a risk matrix.

For more information on the cumulative, please click here.

7. Analyzing Cumulative Results

After a new cumulative is created, it will immediately get available in the Consequence of Failure page, under the Cumulative section. Each cumulative that is created represents a COF scenario, that takes into consideration all the relevant consequences defined by the user as well the relative importance of each one (as some may cause more impact than others).

 

Cumulative Thumbnail tile

Each cumulative will have associated its own thumbnail tile, containing a mini map with the pipes classified according with the grades (on the left) as well as the name defined by the user and an indication of the length of pipes that fall into each grade category (on the right).

Cumulative Summary Panel

By clicking in the cumulative thumbnail tile, a summary preview will be displayed on the right side, containing a mini map with the pipes classified accordingly with the grades as well as an indication of the length of pipes that fall into each grade category as well as the consequences and respective weights contributing to the selected cumulative.

Cumulative Results Page

The user can click on “Open Results” from the summary panel (see above) to jump to the results page. Another option is by clicking in the more button (…) inside the cumulative thumbnail tile, that will be visible once hovering the tile. Click there and a pop-up with several options will be displaying, including drilling into the results page.

8. Comparing Different COF Scenarios

The user can create until 6 cumulative (or COF scenarios) at the same time to be displayed in the Consequence of Failure page. The main goal is for the user to easily understand how the Consequence of failure can change when considering different consequences and/or different weights.

 

Configuring Grades

Clicking on the "Grade" button located on the top of the page will open a pop-up dialog for the user to configure the grades.

The user can configure:

  • Grade names: default is Low, Medium and High,
  • Grade colors: default is green, yellow and red,
  • Score range for each grade: default is 0-34 for low grade, 35-67 for medium grade and 68-100 for high grade,
  • Pipe thickness for each grade: pipes will be color coded in the map according to the color and size defined here. Default thickness is 2.

Once the configuration of the grades is done, automatically all consequences and cumulative that were previously created are updated accordingly with the new grade definitions.

More Options

By hovering the cursor over each consequence or cumulative thumbnail tile, a more options button (…) will appear. Options available include:

  • Results detail for each consequence/cumulative
  • Summary for each consequence/cumulative
  • Edit the logic of a consequence (decision tree or predefined aspect) or cumulative (edit weights and/or aspects to be included)
  • Download the results (grades and scores) for each pipe to CSV
  • Delete a consequence or cumulative

 

See Also

Decision Tree Aspect

Predefined Aspect

Prioritizing pipes

Aspect Results

Editing a Cumulative

Cumulative Results

Likelihood of Failure

Risk Calculation

Planning

OpenFlows WaterSight TechNotes and FAQ's 

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