Case introduction

Utilities today are faced with increasing stakeholder pressure, growing demand of running efficient planning and operations as all as making smart investments supporting the green transition. The increasing need for investment in aging infrastructure, increasing regulation as well as inadequate utility budgets or limited financial leeway are forcing municipalities to not only invest in a more complex and comprehensive replacement of network infrastructure, but also modernize operation and planning with data analytics by leveraging smarter, predictive, and cost-effective technologies.

Danish utility company Fors is on the forefront with their pragmatic asset management thinking and introduction of data analytics pushing the digital asset management agenda forward.

Fors is a public utility company in Denmark servicing 3 major municipalities. Fors Utility is working proactively to ensure a healthy water environment and low climate footprint through technological initiatives and climate adaptation of existing systems. In total, they serve around 200,000 customers every day with one or more types of supply.

Asset Management is a central part of Fors’ strategy to become a smart asset management utility

In 2021, Fors Utility adopted a ‘Wastewater Vision’ to ensure smart management of wastewater resources and infrastructure now and in the future. The new strategy focuses on digitalisation of both internal processes and customer driven solutions – with asset management being one of the keystones in the overall digital transformation of the company. The strategy partly is about future-proofing the wastewater system of total 2900 Km (1800 mi.).

Fors Utility chose in year 2020 to implement data|APX^® software from company APX10 in order to achieve better overview and analysis for reinvestment planning of their utility network.

According to Fors Utility the most significant gain so far using data|APX^® software is the ability to visualize and analyse all the data that is already available. On top of that Machine Learning is used to strengthen the data foundation which all together gives a solid base for data driven and documented decision-making.

The data|APX^® software helps us prioritize our efforts and gives us a data driven and documented decision support tool. The risk-based approach supports us in making the efficient choices that will benefit our customers and increase the security of supply on both short and long term and hopefully find the right balance between OPEX and CAPEX investments.

Digital Asset Management introduced across the entire organisation

Fors Utility has introduced Asset Management in the organisation and are currently working with development and implementation of the digital strategy.

In Fors Utility we have chosen a pragmatic approach for implementing Asset Management. We skipped the big road maps and holistic approach and decided to focus on designing the implementation to the maturity of the organisation. This means we have selected three focus areas which are: short- and long-term reinvestment plans for utility network, short- and long-term reinvestment plans for production facilities and project governance.

Fors Utility is a tradition operational minded organisation which induces a big challenge in relation to implement Asset Management, which requires a big cultural change of mindset. All levels in the organisation must change their way of thinking and the approach to prioritize investments and funds. Stakeholder involvement therefore has been an important and crucial part of both designing and implementing Asset Management as well as developing the requirement analysis and specification.

Fors Utility is part of the data|APX^® network in Denmark, where utilities share knowledge around digital asset management and smart use of existing data.