Deploying major enterprise software can be a daunting task, especially for a municipality or contractor working with legacy systems. New technology can disrupt workflows and daily operations and may require significant staff training. Some organizations delay upgrades and improvements simply to avoid the temporary inconvenience and loss of productivity. Eventually, however, new software is necessary; the disadvantages of hanging onto an obsolete system far outweigh the appeal of sticking to the status quo. To ensure that your transition — whether to a new asset management solution, email platform or sewer inspection software — is smooth, follow these best practices.

Every two years, IFAT—the world’s largest trade show for water, sewer and waste—descends on Munich, Germany for five days. The show draws more than 141,000 attendees and 3,300 exhibitors from 58 countries. This year, WinCan moved to Hall C3, where it exhibited prominently among manufacturers dedicated to the construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of water supply and sewerage systems. WinCan’s latest products and features were highlighted at this year’s event.

WinCan holds certification for more than 30 regional standards around the globe, helping solidify its world leadership within the sewer asset management industry and demonstrating its commitment to providing high quality software. Most recently, the National Association of Sewer Service Companies (NASSCO) awarded WinCan with certification for Version 7 of the industry-standard Pipeline Assessment Certification Program (PACP).

Save the date: WinCan will be at the WWETT Show in Indianapolis, February 22-24, booth 6132. We’ll be showing off the latest additions to our industry-leading sewer inspection reporting and asset management platform, including:

Planning a sewer rehab project means weighing many factors for each asset: location; defect type, quantity and severity; surface obstructions; pipe material and age; and more. From his early days in the municipal world, WinCan Business Manager Mike Russin recalls using highlighters with maps tacked to the wall. “It used to be a huge hassle,” he says. “We’d watch VHS tapes, find the spot in need of rehab, use different color highlighters to mark what kind of rehab was needed, and then take the map into the engineer's office at the end of the month to get approval. There were so many hoops you had to jump through.”

Not only is precise mapping of a municipality’s underground assets important for maintenance and inspection purposes, it can help avoid cross-bores from directional drilling. The challenge is that municipalities can’t count on as-built plans for accurate mapping of underground assets. In the past, municipalities have relied on locators or on digging up pipes to get a visual. Both of these solutions can prove inefficient and sometimes inaccurate. Increasingly, municipalities are deploying geospatial probes, special sensors that are capable of tracking their position in 3D space using a technology called inertial navigation. The data provided by these sensors can be read by WinCan’s 3DGS Scan module to create in real-time a virtual 3D computer model of underground assets.

Heathrow airport is known the world over as the UK’s premier international airport and also Europe’s busiest international airport. Some 80 airlines fly from Heathrow direct to over 180 destinations worldwide, carrying on average, around 200,000 passengers per day into and out of the UK from its four terminal buildings. To ensure the smooth running of such a massive operation requires some major behind the scenes work, not least of which is the ongoing management and maintenance of the utility services serving the airport.

The airport is served by some 530 km of surface water drainage, the effective operation of which is vital to the continuing workings of the airport’s runways and aprons especially during the worst of weather. There is also a network of some 120 km of foul sewers that also need to be continually maintained to handle the product of so many passengers, aircrew and other airport staff. Across the whole pipeline spectrum, diameters vary from as small as 80 mm up to 1,800 mm diameter.

Situated 80 miles west of Philadelphia, the City of Lebanon, PA has become one of the fastest growing small cities in the United States. The City of Lebanon Authority serves as the water and wastewater authority for Lebanon and surrounding municipalities. The Authority’s seven-member sewer inspection crew manages 90 miles of sanitary sewer lines and uses WinCan VX inspection reporting and assessment management software to inspect their sewer lines and plan rehabilitation. Since implementing the software, not only have they realized benefits in terms of planning and efficiency, but they’ve also saved money on inspection and rehabilitation.

The High Speed 1 (HS1) route formally known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a 109-kilometer (68-mile) high-speed railway between London and the United Kingdom. The HS1 is used for domestic and international train services as well as transporting freight.