IBM has announced a $A14.5 million agreement with Power and Water Corporation, the Northern Territory’s multi-utility provider, to help design and implement an asset management system aimed at delivering electricity, water and sewerage services to its customers more efficiently.

Serving approximately 80,000 customers across more than 1.3 million kilometres of the Northern Territory, Power and Water will tap IBM’s expertise and technology for its Asset Management Capability (AMC) Project, a four-year program to improve asset management practices across the corporation.

“We need an enterprise-wide system to streamline processes and report real performance,” said Sharon McAnelly, AMC Program Director, Power and Water Corporation.

“Better asset management systems capability means better information on asset performance and condition. This will bring clarity to investment decisions, maintenance planning and delivery, and ultimately better customer services.”

A key component in the delivery of the AMC Project lies in the implementation of IBM Maximo Spatial Asset Management, a geospatially enabled asset management solution integrated with the latest Geographic Information System (GIS) technology from ESRI.
Maximo is designed to enable users to visualise all assets and work in a geospatial context to help optimise resources and decisions. The solution enables users to capture, analyse, and display assets, locations, and work orders.

For example, asset managers will not only know that an asset exists, but can also see information about its condition, cost, maintenance history and exactly where it is on a map, in relationship to other assets of various types.

Power and Water will also be using IBM Cognos TM1 to consolidate and analyse maintenance and capital works planning. This will help Power and Water to meet the future needs of the growing Northern Territory population and meet the goals of its recently increased capital maintenance plan allocated across power generation, power networks, water, sewerage and business services.