The Drakenstein Local Municipality in Western Cape started using the Municipal Assistant management software system in July 2010 to get better insight into the operation and maintenance status of their six wastewater treatment plants. It is helping Mr. Ronald Brown, the Engineer of Waste Management in Drakenstein, to generate reports for his political bosses with one push of a button. It assists him to better manage all the hardware, and when he has to order new spare parts. It also helps build skills of process controllers.
Published on: 08/04/2011
The Drakenstein Local Municipality in Western Cape started using the Municipal Assistant management software system in July 2010 to get better insight into the operation and maintenance status of their six wastewater treatment plants. It is helping Mr. Ronald Brown, the Engineer of Waste Management in Drakenstein, to generate reports for his political bosses with one push of a button. It assists him to better manage all the hardware, and when he has to order new spare parts. It also helps build skills of process controllers.
The municipality hopes that use of this asset and operation and maintenance system will earn them the prestigious Blue and Green Drop certifications for top service delivery providers from the Department of Water Affairs.
See and hear him also in a short video clip from the Cape Town WaterCube, March 2011 http://watercube.blip.tv/file/4909215/
The Municipal Assistant brings all information in one place. In 38 municipalities the eWISA Team has collected all the relevant data from all the water and wastewater treatment works within the Water Services Authority, photographed each item and then loaded the Asset Data Base. From there process controllers can with a push of a button generate information on the operation and maintenance status of the assets they work with. The manager can easily generate monthly reports to the city execution and councillors, prepare budget proposals, and analyse performance of suppliers. This should all contribute to operation and management problems being addressed before they occur.
Mr. Brown joined Drakenstein Municipality (serving an estimated 250,000 population in 2009) from Stellenbosch, which is considered the most successful case study of the use and effect of the Municipal Assistant system since 2006. “We in Drakenstein were very interested in looking at the Stellenbosch experience and how the Municipal Assistant system strengthened their capacity at their water treatment plants operations. And it earned them the Blue Drop certification, he said in an interview in Cape Town, during South Africa’s Water Week March 2011. Drakenstein contacted WAM Technology the designer and owner of the Municipal Assistant system and the related eWISA website.
See for the components of the Municipal Assistance and the reports it can generate the article Components of the eWISA Municipal Assistant.
Ronald shared his Stellenbosch lessons with his his supplier of the eWISA package. Dana Grobler from WAM Technology was invited to give a presentation to the top management of the municipality that gave the go ahead in June 2010. Mr. Grobler helped Drakenstein to put all municipal information such as assets, life span, contracts, suppliers, staff, photos from its six plants in the computer.
Mr. Brown: “We envisage training all our Process Controllers, currently three persons underwent the training and laboratory staff in using the system for their work. In the second phase we envisage adding a complaints management module in Drakenstein. This worked with great success in Stellenbosch”. It gives them a system to act on complaints from consumers. If a maintenance guy doesn’t act on a complaint in time, it goes to his boss, who can take action”, he added.
The training ranges from one to three days. Drakenstein invests 300,000 to 400,000 Rand or Euro 30,000 and 40,000 for the whole package from WAM Technology. “But the system is only good if everyone uses it every day”.
What value for money do you get out of the system, I asked. Mr. Brown was quick to answer. “With one touch of button I can do the budget, or my report to my superiors. It also gives us lifespan figures that we can use for forward planning, our operation and maintenance costing and our capital management expenditure needs. We can also keep track of the performance of our suppliers. It also provides us a Global Positioning System to track our water quality. For me it is a good management tool. It also improved skills of our people in using computers for their work. It is a warning system that can help avoid millions of Rand spending for maintenance. And in a year from now I can tell you more about the impact”.
The Drakenstein politicians and administration are now considering using this asset and O&M system also for other services such as electricity, solid waste management or roads.
Dick de Jong
