Supporting water treatment for a growing city

Hamilton City Council wanted to improve asset knowledge of their 45-year old Pukete Wastewater Treatment Plant, to improve management and support future upgrades. We used the latest technologies and asset management approaches to help them do this.

Hamilton is New Zealand's fourth largest city and one of its fastest growing. With more than 200,000 people expected to call Hamilton home in the next 10 years and with significant new growth areas being developed, demands on water resources are only set to increase. The Council engaged Beca to undertake a pilot project to help it collect and manage asset data for their only Wastewater Treatment Plant at Pukete.

We developed a sophisticated 3D digital model of the existing facility that brought together existing information about the asset with newly captured data.

High-tech drones were used to scan the entire site to capture key topography and site-wide information. Our survey team then used high definition laser scanning technology to capture critical internal assets, before our modelling team developed a highly detailed 3D model of the building and its assets using BIM.

Existing equipment barcodes were added to the 3D model, linking the physical assets with their digital counterparts. Asset documentation such as O&M manuals and data sheets were also included. The resulting digital model will be used by the Council to enable improved asset management and to support future upgrades of the Pukete plant.

The Pukete Wastewater Treatment Plant has also been featured on the BIMinNZ website, a national alliance of industry and government bodies established to promote the use of BIM technology in New Zealand. 

Awards

• NZIOB Awards 2019, Innovation Award - Highly Commended
• IPWEA NZ Excellence Awards 2019, Excellence in Maximising Asset Performance - Highly Commended
• ACENZ (Association of Consulting Engineers New Zealand) Awards 2019 - Merit Award
• RICS NZ 2020 Awards - Innovation Award, Highly Commended