City of Pompano Beach
About
About City of Pompano Beach Florida
Founded in 1908 and located 35 miles north of Miami, Pompano Beach is the fifth largest city in South Florida. Among other utilities, the City of Pompano Beach Utilities (COPBU) provides its 110,473 residents with water reuse, wastewater, and stormwater services. Known for its beaches, marinas and offshore coral reef, plus numerous wrecks and other dive sites. The long Pompano Beach Pier stretches into the Atlantic Ocean. North, along the shore, the 1900s Hillsboro Lighthouse guards the Hillsboro Inlet, an entrance to the Intracoastal Waterway.
Problem
Choosing an EAM Solution
Three factors drove the COPBU’s search for an EAM solution:
- The City Utilities had recently transitioned from an end-of-life CMMS to a paper-based system. This paper system was unsustainable in the long-term and needed replacing. While they were able to use this system to track what was happening each day, it was impossible to use historical data to inform future decision-making.
- The annual threat from hurricane season meant they needed secure data storage. This meant the ability not just to capture data, but also to house, store, and access it regardless of local conditions. The cloud was a potential solution, but uptime, data integrity & recovery, and security were key considerations.
- COPBU wanted more than just a repository for asset data and the ability to issue work orders. With a fixed budget and many other asset management needs (3 treatment plants, 80 lift stations, 4300 manholes, and 300 miles of water lines), the ability to track and improve reliability was a key consideration.
Ideally, they would achieve these three objectives without placing any additional burden on their small IT department.
Solution
Why Cloud-Based Maximo?
After considering several options, IBM’s Maximo was chosen as the preferred solution, offering the power and flexibility COPBU needed to track all their assets and improve reliability. By working with Naviam to implement Maximo in the cloud, COPBU was confident they could move away from paper-based chaos while also protecting their data from weather disruption.
Key considerations included:
- Superior Security – Security is a factor for any utility provider. Naviam’s status as an ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified provider reassured them that their data was safe.
- Low Maintenance – With no onsite hardware requirements and support from Naviam, Pompano Beach was confident that cloud-based Maximo would not impact on their IT team.
- Highly Reliable – Faced with annual hurricanes, the reliability and redundancy offered by Naviam’s cloud services would help COPBU continue to perform vital work even in adverse conditions that would disrupt local servers.
Result
Implementing Cloud-Based Maximo
COPBU implemented Maximo using a phased approach, beginning Phase 1 with a single site, the Oasis Reclamation Plant. Working closely with Naviam’s premier partner, COPBU used this phase to do the heavy lifting, putting significant time and effort into standardizing everything from naming conventions to processes in preparation for a future wider rollout.
COPBU has completed implementation of the water treatment plant. The standardization work done in Phase 1, coupled with Maximo’s excellent ability to scale, has meant that Phase 2 has proven cheaper than Phase 1. This is despite the significant increase in assets and the need for a complete asset walkdown.
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