Innovative Approaches & Technologies in the DWSD CIPMO Program

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) serves more than 230,000 accounts, including a residential population of nearly 650,000. DWSD's network consists of more than 2,700 miles of water main and nearly 3,000 miles of sewer collection piping within the city of Detroit. This presentation shall outline DWSD's Capital Improvement Program Management Organization (CIPMO) project. CIPMO's mission is to coordinate and execute capital project planning and project implementation across the City. CIPMO has taken a programmatic and collaborative approach to rehabilitate the water and sewer infrastructure with the goal of producing $500 MM worth of CIP projects over five years. In June of 2020, DWSD initiated a new, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based procurement process intending to streamline procurement activities, increase the level of information provided to prospective bidders, and support the development of more accurate bids on capital projects. The newly implemented system is built on DWSD's existing enterprise GIS infrastructure, leveraging Esri's ArcGIS Online platform to publish and maintain a web mapping application that provides bidders with detailed GIS data on planned repairs, access to supporting documentation (including bid documents and plans), and base data that can be used to support the bid development process. This system provides bidders with the ability to interactively view data within the web mapping environment, query or filter data based on a variety of parameters, and export data and maps to support further analysis or assessment activities. This presentation will outline the previous procurement process, the development, implementation and management of the new platform, and detail DWSD's plans for future improvements to the procurement process. DWSD's Collection System includes lateral, connector/trunk, and interceptor sewers that collect and convey storm and sanitary flows throughout the service area through lift stations to the wastewater treatment plant. The sewers are generally a collection of clay, brick, concrete pipes ranging in size from 8 inch to 17 feet. The system has approximately 3,344 mile of sewers which includes 2,258 miles of lateral sewer, 559 miles of connector sewers, 483 miles of trunk sewers and 44 miles of interceptor sewers. The oldest of these sewers were constructed in the mid-1800s. The collection system services Detroit and 76 communities which include over 3 million people over approximately 904 square-miles in southeastern Michigan. DWSD's in-house crews perform routine maintenance of the collection system including open cut repairs to fix sewer collapses and sewer rodding/cleaning along with video inspection to identify areas/causes of flow obstructions and provide relief to customers. The Department utilizes contracts to carry out sewer assessments and construction for capital improvement and aid the in-house crews in performing emergency repairs. These contracts are also used by the Department to assist DWSD's crews in providing water-in-basement complaint investigations, sewer cleaning service and open cut repairs. These contracts are a good fit for the Department's short-term maintenance. Starting in the early 1980s, the DWSD began to use the Cured-In-Place (CIPP) method as an alternative to the open cut method in rehabilitation of the collection system. Segments of sewers determined to be structurally deficient were lined by the CIPP method. In the late 1990s, the Department initiated a larger scale CIP with the intention of rehabilitating up to 1% of the collection system annually. Prior to the inception of DWSD's current Capital Improvement Program Management Organization (CIPMO), the Department's Collection System CIP was managed and implemented through two sewer contracts divided between the east and west sides of the City. A quadrant of the collection system which represents approximately a quarter square mile in size was identified based on previous I/I study, water in basement complaints, cave-ins/collapse records and population density and assigned to the sewer contractor to assess, prepare and submit PACP reports, treatment strategies for DWSD's review and approval. Approved strategies for rehabilitation were also performed by the same contractor. The Department and its contractors utilized the open cut method, Cured-In-Place (CIPP) lining, Slip lining, Epoxy lining and Cementitious and Chemical Grouting methods in the Collection System CIP as the main methods of rehabilitation. The Department's annual renewal rate of the collection system was about ~150,000 linear feet of sewers per year, which was approximately 24% of what was recommended by the Department's Master Plan. DWSD's current CIPMO which was initiated in 2016 is taking a different approach to the capital renewal of the collection system. Instead of a single contract to perform sewer assessments, provide PACP reports, treatment strategies, design, and construction services; separate standalone contracts are procured to provide sewer assessment, data verification and acceptance, treatment strategies, design and construction. The details of DWSD's CIPMO process including emerging challenges, design & construction, resource management, procurement challenges, will be discussed in full at the conference. Beginning in June of 2020, DWSD initiated a new, GIS based procurement process that is intended to streamline procurement activities, increasing the level of information provided and supporting the development of more accurate bids on capital projects. The implemented web-based system provides prospective bidders with access to a contract-specific, interactive mapping application that details information on the planned repair, including needed replacement and rehabilitation work. This application also provides advanced functionality to support the export of data in tabular format, interactive toggling of map layers, and filtering or querying of data. As compared to the traditional approach of providing bidders with hard copy or static plans, the GIS-based procurement platform provides bidders with the following benefits to better prepare bids: Access to additional data on existing assets and proposed work. Access to a variety of basemaps (including aerial imagery, topographic, planimetric, and hybrid) to help provide better understanding of the construction activity areas. Ability to view geographic data interactively, at different map scales and/or combinations of layers. Flexibility to filter export data and maps to a variety of formats, including spreadsheet format, allowing for additional assessment and analysis to be performed Ability to 'bookmark' specific areas or locations, perform measurements, and make map markups that are specific to user logins This system also gives bidders the ability to access contract data on a variety of devices while maintaining data security through assigned, contractor-specific login credentials. Approved DWSD contractors are provided access to specific procurement sites on a contract-by-contract basis, minimizing the amount of effort required by DWSD to manage credentials and simplifying the login process for contractors.