The strategic choice approach to the maintenance management of a water distribution system

ABSTRACT

In a water distribution system, maintenance is an essential pillar to ensure that an efficient service is provided and to combat problems such as real water losses. Managing such a system’s maintenance needs involves multiple stakeholders, subjective variables, and requires a learning process to find a solution. Structuring the problem can provide clarity for the situation under analysis, especially by resolving the need to establish integrated management among different water company sectors. In this instance, the strategic choice approach is proposed as a framework to align maintenance management perspectives with the system’s network so as to reduce losses and ensure greater social benefits. A case study in a metropolitan region of Brazil was presented. A strategic plan is developed that features comprehensive actions and practices for enriching the control of critical decision areas and their uncertainties. The importance of establishing partnerships with universities was one distinguishing factor in the outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Problem structuring methods
• strategic choice approach
• strategic management
• real water losses
• uncertainties

Acknowledgements

The authors express formal acknowledgement to John Friend, creator of the SCA methodology, for providing support with the STRAD software. The authors also would like to express sincere gratitude to the editor and anonymous reviewers for insightful comments to improve the quality of the research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) under Grant [142224/2018-9] and [309117/2018-6]; and CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) under Grant Financial Code [001].