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This paper aims to present a literature review of remote monitoring systems for water infrastructure in the Global South.

Following initial scoping searches, further examination was made of key remote monitoring technologies for water infrastructure in the Global South. A standard literature search methodology was adopted to examine these monitoring technologies and their respective deployments. This hierarchical approach prioritised “peer-reviewed” articles, followed by “scholarly” publications, then “credible” information sources and, finally, “other” relevant materials. The first two search phases were conducted using academic search services (e.g. Scopus and Google Scholar). In the third and fourth phases, Web searches were carried out on various stakeholders, including manufacturers, governmental agencies and non-governmental organisations/charities associated with Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in the Global South.

This exercise expands the number of monitoring technologies considered in comparison to earlier review publications. Similarly, preceding reviews have largely focused upon monitoring applications in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper explores opportunities in other geographical regions and highlights India as a significant potential market for these tools.

This review predominantly focuses upon information/data currently available in the public domain.

Remote monitoring technologies enable the rapid detection of broken water pumps. Broken water infrastructure significantly impacts many vulnerable communities, often leading to the use of less protected water sources and increased exposure to water-related diseases. Further to these public health impacts, there are additional economic disadvantages for these user communities.

This literature review has sought to address some key technological omissions and to widen the geographical scope associated with previous investigations.

Strategic management/business policy.

This case study is intended for undergraduate (business administration) level students.

PeakWater is a state-owned water supplier in Peakland. Owing to government restrictions, the water supply maintenance business of the company has to be outsourced to a separate entity, resulting in the establishment of FixIt, a wholly owned subsidiary of PeakWater. FixIt is mainly responsible for maintaining the water pumps, as well as investing in new projects for PeakWater. The lower efficiency and incompetence in investment of FixIt hinders the growth of PeakWater in the long run, and also causes discontent by the citizens. PeakWater's Board is evaluating two proposals submitted by the Group Planning Division.

These are: the nature of private enterprises and its creation of value for public enterprises; the conflicts of interest between private and public enterprises; and the criteria and considerations in the evaluation of corporate strategies.

Teaching notes are available – consult your librarian for access. The teaching notes include a list of supporting materials.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a method for selection of an optimum level of repair by replacement of an equipment based on its cost. In a ship where the engineer has a vast variety of equipment and systems to operate and maintain within limited time frames and availability of human resources, it is often difficult to disassemble a whole equipment to replace a faulty component. It is instead a lot easier to just replace the faulty equipment with whole new equipment. However, such a decision comes at an enormous capital cost. Therefore, the key question is, can we have a model to help us arrive at a decision on the correct level of carrying out repairs?

The paper uses a model based on cost and convolution of failure distributions of critical sub-components of an equipment. Necessary assumptions based on real life experience have been incorporated in the model.

The paper used an example of a particular type of motor driven sea water centrifugal pump which was commonly used in main engine sea water system, firefighting system, air conditioning system, etc. The pump had one of the highest failure rates in the ship (approximately one failure per 150 days) and the engineers found it cost and time effective to replace the entire pump on failure rather than carrying out replacement of the failed components. The model analyzed that the engineer’s hunch was not off the mark.

The implication of the work presented in the paper will be savings in maintenance cost and downtime due to optimal level of repairs on a multi-component equipment. The limitations of the work are assumption of independence of failures of components. This may not be true in all the cases. Further, opportunity based maintenance has also not been considered.

The originality of the paper lies in the presentation of a method for selection of an optimum level of maintenance for a multi-component equipment

With the shift of manufacture to mainland China, the utility and building services industries in Hong Kong have become dominant. To ensure adherence to proper routine operations and the provision of quality services, the equipment of these sectors must be maintained in good condition. The results of a recently conducted survey indicate that equipment failure‐driven and time‐based maintenance are most commonly used in Hong Kong. Only a few companies use condition‐based preventive maintenance. This paper presents an overview of maintenance practice in Hong Kong, and introduces the novel concept of intelligent predictive maintenance. In this maintenance system, the seriousness of the damage that is caused by faults in equipment can be determined, and the remnant life of the defective equipment can be predicted. Moreover, the system can automatically schedule maintenance activities in an efficient manner. With such abilities in equipment prognosis and automatic maintenance scheduling, the “fire‐fighting” situations that often occur in failure‐driven and time‐based maintenance can be avoided. Hence, any waste of resources and loss of production that are due to the mismanagement of maintenance can be substantially reduced.

Condition‐based maintenance is the diagnosis of component failure or a prognosis of a component's time to failure. The aim of this paper is twofold: a summary of the main assumptions regarding condition‐based maintenance found in the literature into eight postulates, and a comparison of the postulates against industrial practice. The postulates were formulated regarding the technical system, the managerial system and workforce knowledge.

The postulates were examined in a multiple case study of five large firms in the process industry.

The results indicate that some postulates were supported with empirical findings. Limited or no support was found for postulates concerning the application of prognostic activities, use of dedicated software, use of procedures, use of training, and the active management of domain‐related knowledge availability.

Practitioners can use the eight postulates as key elements in the management of condition‐based maintenance technology, and for the comparison of their current condition‐based maintenance practices with what literature generally proposes.

Other researchers have reported on condition‐based maintenance, but most publications focus on applied mathematics and new monitoring and simulation models. Only limited attention was paid to industrial practice so far. The study is one of the first in‐depth empirical studies into actual condition‐based maintenance practice.

The purpose of this paper (Part 1 of 2) is to classify and map, in a systematic manner and from a facilities management (FM) perspective, the performance indicators that are applicable to evaluating facilities operation and maintenance (O&M) in commercial buildings.

Forming part of a multi-stage research project, the applicable performance indicators that had been identified from an extensive literature review were consolidated and defined. Based on a phase-hierarchy (P-H) model – a fundamental classification framework comprising three phases of facilities services delivery and three hierarchical FM levels – the indicators were systematically classified, and a map showing their distribution along the phase and hierarchy dimensions was obtained.

The P-H model enabled systematic classification of the 71 applicable indicators. Mapping the indicators with the model showed that more indicators concern the input or output phase of facilities services delivery. Indicators at the strategic level, which have a wide span of control, are small in quantity, compared to the large number of indicators at the operational level.

The P-H model, which proves useful for classifying performance indicators for facilities in commercial buildings, may be applied to similar research on other types of buildings or infrastructures.

The method of classifying the performance indicators and the mapping result of the indicators are useful reference for different levels of FM practitioners.

This paper illustrates a novel attempt that made use of the P-H model to classify O&M performance indicators.

This paper reviews energy alternatives for groundwater pumping in remote, rural areas which are not grid connected or where grid extension costs are prohibitively high. The applicability of photovoltaic (PV) pumping under certain conditions is discussed, using examples of in‐service fieldwork results, and experimental results of a laboratory PV pumping rig with remote monitoring capabilities using telemetry. The outcome of the survey and analysis shows that PV pumping can be competitive with other technologies under specific head and flow conditions, although the socio‐institutional implementation strategies are crucial to the techno‐economic success of actual pumping schemes.

Suggests refurbishment of the many disused public fountains (estimated at up to 2000 in the UK) can be achieved at a fraction of the cost of creating new water displays. Briefly reviews deterioration points – statuary, perimeter walls, pool walls and floor, pumping equipment, pipeworks, pump screens, nozzles and valves, filtration, wind – and water‐controls, winter protection and electrical safety. Concludes that programmed maintenance, and the establishment of specific maintenance responsibility, is crucial for public display fountain operation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding on the impact of quality management (QM) tools and techniques in water supply infrastructure maintenance and the generation of non-revenue water (NRW) by Namibian Municipal Water Distributors.

In-depth interviews were selected as the primary data collection method, while secondary data were collected using document review and observations. In-depth interviews as primary method provided rich data and details on the subject matter from the respondents. Document review and observations provided a holistic perspective and understanding of the context within which the maintenance projects are handled by municipal water distributors.

The study found that as the number of QM tools employed to analyze maintenance data increases, the generation of NRW by the municipality decreases. However, for the tools to be effective, they should cover applications such as problem identification, data analysis, process analysis, decision making, planning, quality control and statistical process control, this helped Namibian municipalities to produce low volumes of NRW. In contrast, municipalities using QM tools arbitrarily lead to high quantities of NRW generation.

The World Bank recommends that NRW should be less than 25 percent of the total water produced, while in many countries NRW is up to 60 percent. Developed economies have made efforts to reduce NRW but efforts are still at nascent stage in emerging economies. This is the first study providing evidences of QM tools application in maintenance process and effect on NRW.

The unpredictable failure of submersible pump (SP) in groundwater irrigation systems has considerable negative economic consequences. The purpose of this paper is to develop a total cost minimization model that aims to optimize maintenance actions for SP. It reports on simulation-based stochastic scenario analysis for evaluating total cost of maintenance.

Stochastic simulation modeling has been performed for failure of pump motor and corresponding maintenance. Five alternative scenarios were compared for total cost over 15 years starting with empirical data from a northern Ethiopian site. Downtime probabilities and spare part supply uncertainty have been considered in the mathematical model. The model is also validated using multiple ways.

The scenario comparisons indicate that despite the challenges of accessing SP doing one motor rewinding for each purchased pump system upon failure (preferably with shorter supply lead time and variability) seems to result in lowest overall costs for the time horizon considered.

The model should help to make informed practical decision regarding planning and management of SP failure systems in a developing economy context. This should, therefore, lead to better revenue for smallholder farmers and improved food security in similar context.

There are limited number of publications that consider the life cycle costs with stochastic analysis when it comes to maintenance of SPs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no paper has previously directly addressed maintenance cost optimization for SP in irrigation. The study could be used to develop more sophisticated stochastic models with more efficient algorithms and consideration of additional sources of stochasticity for such system.