Modern Civil Engineering should include technology! An increasingly rapidly changing digital world demands a furious pace of innovation in our engineering environment. SMEC, or Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, is one of the leading engineering and development consultancies in the world. Providing multidisciplinary consulting services in engineering, project management, environmental science and development activities, SMEC has been engaged in assignments throughout the world for over 40 years.
SMEC South Africa provides comprehensive consulting and project management services in asset management for fixed and mobile assets. These asset management services include the development of management systems, policies and guidelines, preparation of maintenance manuals, and the implementation of computerised maintenance management systems. We thus looked towards finding a Mobile application for efficient field data collection in order to deliver a high quality end product (complete asset register) to our clients. To date we have successfully completed work components pertaining to and relevant to asset management for government organisations, international funding and aid agencies, utility companies and private sector clients using Fulcrum. Fulcrum provided us with an all-in-one mobile solution with a wide range of features that go far beyond simple data collection. To date we have created over 95 custom Apps in Fulcrum to collect over 20 000 assets for 11 projects within South Africa. Typical industries, for which SMEC South Africa has provided services using Fulcrum, include:
- buildings
- roads & bridges
- water storage and supply
- waste water treatment
- water treatment
- electric distribution
- sports facilities
- parks & recreation
- hospitals
- social surveys
The field work for collection and assessment of asset data included the following main tasks:
- Creating customized Apps to integrate into our maintenance management systems
- Developing of inventory and classification systems for assets
- Collecting and inventory of asset data
- Condition assessment of assets
Meet our Local Team in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Some of the projects carried out by members of the local team over the last 2 years that required similar expertise and experience using Fulcrum are:
- eThekwini Municipality –uShaka Marine World asset inventory and condition assessments
- OXFAM – Water Program to help connect local people to safe drinking water
- Greater Kokstad Municipality – asset inventory and condition assessments
- Kokstad Ext 7 Independent Audit– investigate and assess infrastructure services installed
- Le Domain Country Estate – audit of stormwater infrastructure installed
- KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport – road surface visual assessment
- McCord Hospital – asset inventory and condition assessments
- Sedibeng Water – Northern Cape asset inventory and condition assessments
- Sedibeng Water – Free State asset inventory and condition assessments
- Moqhaka Local Municipality – asset inventory and condition assessments
- KZN Ezemvelo Wildlife – asset inventory and condition assessments
SMEC South Africa are concerned with the development and understanding of technological systems to enhance engineering processes. Our overall goal is to continuously improve upon our existing methods and outputs. The support of modern technologies and the right skills, allow us to operate in the Information Age receiving industry recognition though our integrated engineering approaches. For more information on SMEC’s high-quality consultancy services, visit our website.