Council team completes a year’s worth of bridge maintenance work in just six months
Clarence Valley Council has upped the ante on its management of the $2 billion of local roads, bridges and water infrastructure in its care by taking on components of TechnologyOne’s Enterprise Asset Management Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.
With large areas affected by bushfires in the summer of 2019/2020 and others experiencing significant flooding in February 2022, the council recognised a growing need to better manage its assets.
According to Clarence Valley’s Finance and Systems Manager, Kate Maginnity: “We had a lot of separate systems for asset management and many paper-based or manual processes. It was time and resource intensive and prone to delays and errors.”
“To better manage community assets, we wanted a single source of truth. We needed to know what condition they were in, what we needed to do to maintain them for the future and what was the most efficient way of doing that,” she said.
After taking on TechnologyOne’s Asset Operations & Maintenance and Field App modules, the council has replaced manual paperwork with tablets that crew members take into the field. That not only reduces travel time for the crew but also allows the council to update field staff on job data, anytime, anywhere. This ensures community assets are regularly maintained so community members can continue to use them safely.
“We now have better visibility of our operations, which helps us be more effective and efficient. Within the first six months of having the new works system in place, the council bridge crew had completed their year-long maintenance inspection program, utilising maintenance schedules, defects and work orders to increase efficiency.
“They were able to take on more projects as a result,” said Ms Maginnity.
Additionally, better project planning and the ability to bulk procure materials saw the bridge crew complete their allocation of bridge replacements in six months. This allowed the council to allocate more bridge replacements internally instead of using contractors, resulting in a reduction in costs.
Kate Maginnity says TechnologyOne’s broad local government experience was an asset too.
“For us, one of the key benefits of working with TechnologyOne was their experience in working with local governments. It gave us the confidence that, whatever the challenge was, it was likely that they had dealt with it before and could advise us,” she said.
TechnologyOne’s Chief Executive Officer, Ed Chung, said: “We understand technology and we understand the industry; we support hundreds of councils, knowing each one has priorities that are unique to their community. We’re constantly innovating, and over the last ten years have helped many councils digitally transform their operations to deliver for their community.”
