PWN has outsourced the design of pipes in the network to contractors. When a new area is being developed a contractor designs the location of the new pipes and pipe diameters and verifies if the pipe dimensions comply with PWN’s requirements. This process consists of multiple manual steps and has several opportunities to reduce time, efforts and related costs, while increasing the quality of the designs.

Approach and solution
The idea for SI-Design came when the technical team of Spatial Insight finalised the development of SI-Blueprint for and with WML. SI-Blueprint calaculated the optimal pipe diameter for existing pipes. An algorithm was constructed that designs the optimal route from the secondary pipes to the water meters that need to be connected and hydrants in the area. The definition of the development area is very simple and intuitive by drawing a polygon on a map. The algorithm finds the optimal route through the area and the smallest possible pipe diamaters while meeting requirements for pressure and flow.
We explicitly chose to keep the designer in-the-loop of the process. He or she can either define a first route of the tertiary pipe(s) or can ask the software to make an initial proposal. After each eventual adjustment, the software will re-run and to optimise the design again.

Contribution to the organisation’s strategy
The fully automated design of tertiary networks will enable utilities to either re-insource the design process and capture the knowledge that may have disappeared as a consequence of the retirement of senior staff, or two make the existing internal design process more efficient and of higher quality. We expect that the software will enable a asset engineer to design circa 5 times more network length compared with ‘manual’ design. In addition the digitalised handling of drawings and data between the different stakeholders can be done more efficiently and smoothly.
Customer review
Barry Leguijt, Tactical Asset Manager at PWN: “The development of SI-Design will help PWN to create designs for pipeline installations better and faster. Additionally, the threshold for creating designs is significantly lowered. This is very welcome when training new staff, as experienced technical personnel are scarce.”

"SI-Design is a revolutionary step forward in unlocking complex calculations to a bigger group of engineers"