Beca was commissioned by Water Authority of Fiji to complete a once-in-a-generation asset advisory project covering the entirety of Fiji. Beca selected Autodesk Construction Cloud to enable this complex and multi-disciplined project, with a range of positive outcomes bringing significant improvements to how Fiji manages its water infrastructure.Founded in Auckland in 1920, Beca is one of Asia Pacific’s largest independent advisory, design and engineering consultancies, with a 4,000-strong team in 25 international offices. The Asset Advisory Team at Beca was commissioned by Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) to undertake asset advisory services covering the Pacific nation’s water and wastewater network across almost 600 sites and 110 islands. Recognising the complexity of the project and the need for multi-disciplinary expertise, Beca assembled a specialist project team including staff from their Valuation, Asset & Cost Management, and Digital Engineering Advisory departments. The objectives of the project were threefold: understand the condition of WAF assets and assess their Remaining Useful Life, identify maintenance needs across the network and forecast expenditure accordingly.
The last time WAF completed a comprehensive review of assets was in 2006. The long period between reviews meant several challenges, most notably, the likely high number of additions, deletions, upgrades and inconsistent data. Haya Aljrayed was part of the Beca team that worked on the project, and she remembers the central issue the team focused on as the project kicked off.“We started with the big question: is there a simpler way of dealing with these assets online, ideally in an app? That’s when we sat down to brainstorm the ideal solution that would make this project work in the best way possible.”The Beca team designed a multifaceted approach bringing together software customisation and utilisation, physical inspections, database enhancement and condition assessments. This meant the exceptional volume of data could be handled in a manageable way, even if there were discrepancies in the way it was recorded and maintained.“Our approach turned out to be spot-on in terms of the challenges we tackled during the project,” said Grant Austin. “The outdated asset registers and very large database we received from WAF meant, if we were just running the project in a paper format, we’d be flipping through thousands of pages to find the information we needed.”
The Beca team ran a series of site visits across Fiji’s inhabited islands totalling an area of about 18,300 square kilometres and referenced the WAF Capex List and conversations with ground staff to update the Register. The client also asked Beca to assign unique identifiers to each asset, tagged with GIS technology to enable location tracking and spatial analysis.Choosing the right software would be central to the success and credibility of this project. The Beca team selected the construction management software Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) and another software to achieve real-time asset capture, addition and modification.“We needed a solution that could manage these large datasets and capture spatial information and visual documentation of new assets with certainty of data integrity and consistency,” said Grant Austin. “The other software works for updating existing data, but it faces some limitations with large amounts of new data. To mitigate this, we combined efforts across our Digital Engineering Advisory and Plant & Machinery teams to customise ACC for this project.” The customised version of ACC allowed efficient on-site data capture and effective analysis of more than 10,000 assets. The team began site visits across Fiji to review assets, evaluating their condition, verifying locations and distinguishing between new and old assets. Along the way, Beca also integrated a range of database enhancements to make future Asset Register updates more efficient.
Grant Austin, BECA
The team were able to visit sites with a mobile device and, using the customised ACC solution, update existing asset data or identify and document new assets on-site. When they returned to the office, this data was exported to the WAF Asset Register, drastically reducing the risk of human error during data entry and time spent translating data gathered at inspections. Haya Aljrayed adds that her team worked closely with Autodesk to field feedback from those conducting site visits in Fiji, resulting in customisations to ACC that helped Beca complete the review. These customisations not only benefit the management of WAF assets in future, but also the wider industry as these updates roll out to other ACC users.
The team at Beca successfully completed the project in October 2024, delivering a robust, comprehensive and future-proofed Asset Register for WAF.“This work is a great example of the synergies at Beca that give us a distinct advantage over competitors, because we deliver asset advice and valuation within interactive technology platforms, providing clients with exceptional experiences and letting them confidently plan for the future,” said Grant Austin. Importantly, the updated WAF Asset Register includes unique identifiers for all assets linked to photographs with precise coordinates, even for previously unidentified assets. The web-based interface allows easy access to asset information, with exportable Excel sheets for analysis and planning.
Haya Aljrayed highlights the importance of this approach in providing WAF with “confidence in our inspections and an improved approach to managing assets, so they can allocate resources smartly and ensure the longevity of their infrastructure.”The Beca team were also able to achieve additional positive outcomes with the use of ACC. They upskilled the local WAG team to use the platform, enabling additional immediate support on the project and giving them the skills to maintain the Asset Register into the future. The project also achieved a reduced environmental impact and cost, because the use of ACC meant only essential team members conducting site visits were transported to and around Fiji, instead of a larger project team.
“We’re proud of our ongoing work with WAF, because it showcases Beca’s comprehensive asset advisory services, as well as how we can design completely new solutions to complex problems in partnership with Autodesk,” said Grant Austin.
Grant Austin, BECA
