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Municipal Sewage Works of the City of Munich (Münchener Stadtentwässerung)

Less work and reliable documentation in sewer operations

The mere transition to an individual, schedule-based sewer cleaning system helped the Münchener Stadtentwässerung (MSE) to realise enough savings to defray the costs of introducing the KANiO® operations management system. At the moment, the sum assigned annually by MSE internally using KANiO® is more than three million euros and continues to rise. Transparent operations management documentation with KANiO® also ensures that MSE is prepared for the requirements of the future with a legally substantive, verifiable system. Finally, the result convinced everyone, even though the customer’s requirements for KANiO® were initially extremely stringent. At the beginning of the new millennium, the enormously diverse tasks which MSE carries out to ensure the function of the network were placed on the test bench. Particular attention had to be directed to the new challenges imposed by the Self-Monitoring Ordinance, legal certainty and quality management. As a result, optimisation potential was discovered, which was to be corrected using new strategies and modern technologies. For example, the operations management system (OM system) should support practically all technical processes in the context of maintenance management.

All 2400 kilometres of the sewage network in the city of Munich is divided into zones and subzones. In turn, there are flushing segments within the subzones which consist of retention objects of varying sizes. Cleaning intervals during operation have already been established for the flushing segments contained here, and these specify repeating the process with the following intervals: every year, every two years, and every four years.

The intervals are fixed on the basis of the existing, extensive knowledge and experience of the sewer cleaning personnel. In the past, the cleaning intervals were recorded in separately managed Excel spreadsheets. With the introduction of the OM system, this valuable characteristic data was transferred to the central OM system database once and for all. Together with the sewer master data supplied by the network information system, they provide an excellent data basis for operations.

Convenient filter tools in KANiO® based on the existing basic data enable simple compilation of the cleaning and inspection orders. Cleaning orders for each individual subzone are created, for example. The corresponding retaining systems – packed in flushing segments – can then be listed as commissions according to the schedule using appropriate filters. The cleaning orders were initially output on the customary paper forms. The responses regarding the completion of the cleaning tasks then serve as the basis for changing and optimising the existing intervals. In this way, the plan is always based on a continuous improvement process as required for quality management.

After the productive introduction of the OM system in the individual operational areas of MSE, in 2011 they began thinking in specific terms about the transition from a manual order system to order processing via mobile recording devices. The basic coordination for this had been implemented earlier when the requirements the mobile KANiO® application was to meet during operations were defined in a comprehensive practical test. The basic data determined for this was incorporated in the procurement of the mobile hardware and the graphic viewer. The performance features defined on this basis enable employees to create documentation more easily and faster, and provide valuable support for their processes in the network.