Top asset
management firms in U.S., Australia sign
strategic teaming agreement
Brown and
Caldwell News Release - 08/04/03
San Francisco –August 4,
2003 – Nationwide environmental engineering and consulting
firm Brown and Caldwell and Australian utility Hunter Water
have signed an exclusive agreement to jointly pursue water-
and wastewater-related asset management projects throughout
North America. Asset management is a comprehensive approach to
utility management that is focused on improving customer
service levels while reducing costs of asset ownership.
Though relatively new among
North American public utilities, asset management has been
practiced in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia
over the past 20 years. With nearly a half-million customers
in New South Wales, Hunter Water has earned international
recognition for its innovative approaches to asset management
implementation and the results it has achieved.
Through its Business
Consulting Practice, San Francisco Bay Area-based Brown and
Caldwell was among the first U.S. firms to begin helping
utilities apply asset management principles to their business
operations. "This partnership raises the bar on what it
means to be a top-level asset management consultant,"
says Craig Goehring, Brown and Caldwell CEO. "Our clients
now have access to unparalleled expertise in asset management
through this alliance which melds Brown and Caldwell’s
comprehensive asset management experience with Hunter Water’s
implementation innovations."
"Since adopting asset
management in 1990, we have reduced customer rates by 30
percent in real terms and costs per customer account by 40
percent," says Kevin Young, Hunter Water's manager of
Corporate Planning. "The results are compelling. We have
improved customer service and system performance while at the
same time reducing our capital program by $220 million."
Independently, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a typical U.S.
utility can reduce overall costs by 20 percent through
effective asset management practices.
"To work with utility
managers who over 10 years have transformed their agency using
asset management and achieved the results they have is truly
exciting," says Goehring.
Urgency among U.S. utilities
to organize their operations around asset management
principles has been driven by federal, state and local
governments – and by utility ratepayers, who will likely
have to cover the estimated $23 billion-a-year funding gap
between infrastructure replacement needs and utility budgets.
Over the next twenty years, U.S. water and wastewater
utilities face an estimated $1 trillion in infrastructure
rehabilitation and replacement costs, primarily for pipelines,
treatment plants, pumping stations, and related appurtenances.
Asset management offers these
utilities a way to meet these costs while continuing to
provide affordable services to their customers.
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Established in 1947, Brown
and Caldwell is a multi-discipline, environmental engineering
and consulting firm that provides scientific, technical and
engineering design services to government and industry. The
employee-owned company, with headquarters in Walnut Creek,
Calif., has more than 1,100 employees in 40 offices throughout
the United States. Engineering News-Record ranks Brown and
Caldwell 54th among the nation’s top 500 design
firm, and 7th among firms providing wastewater
design. On the web at www.brownandcaldwell.com.
Hunter Water Corporation
provides water and wastewater utility services to nearly one
half-million people in the Lower Hunter region in New South
Wales, Australia. Established under Australia’s State Owned
Corporations Act in 1989, it provides a broad range of
technical and operational consulting services to water
agencies, councils, industry and urban developers through its
wholly-owned subsidiary, Hunter Water Australia Pty Limited.
On the web at www.hunterwater.com.au
and www.hwa.com.au.
