SPEED – Support Platform for EnginEering Decisions

Even if all new assets were designed to be immune to disasters - a utopic scenario - the vast amount of existing infrastructure and buildings would still be operating at sub-standard, if not unsafe, service levels should the worst happen. According to several directives, scientific reports and industry analysts, action must be taken to strengthen infrastructure systems, and invest in resilience in order to handle future need and be ready for the unknown.

The envisaged system runs through the four R’s of Resilience (Risk reduction, Readiness, Response, and Recovery) and could be thought of as a virtual “pacemaker” built into the infrastructure’s organism to safeguard resilience. Although Resilience is currently regarded as a priority both in Europe and overseas, most products tend to relate it solely to damage minimization during extreme low-probability events; this fact raises reasonable doubts to potential customers as to its business value especially when investment funds are limited.

Our innovative solution combines advanced engineering algorithms with the latest technological solutions available in the areas of Open Standards, Internet of Things, Big Data and Business Analytics to create an integrated decision support system which will bind resilience with the reduction of  real-life operational expenses (while keeping hardware expenses to a minimum) and at the same time ensure loss minimization during extreme events thereby transforming it to a profitable concept with business value.  The system comprises of:

• A data acquisition component gathering parameters necessary for the condition assessment from field sensors (e.g. accelerometers, piezometers, flood meters), available services such as the web (i.e., meteorological information) and UAV’s (high resolution photography and mapping) and other enterprise IT systems
• An algorithmic component, to efficiently process data and reliably assess condition or detect damage zones in case of an extreme event
• A BIM/GIS data access and a presentation component offering real time decision-making tools and allowing interoperability with existing systems.

When in operation, the system will enable a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach to allocating maintenance budget; this alone could reduce road maintenance costs by 10-20% (McKinsey, 2016) thereby greatly increasing the profit margin of road agencies (whose profitability – especially in congested networks – relies on OPEX minimization). At the same time, the system will enable rapid assessment and calculation of damage indices at the most critical locations immediately following disastrous events, which will allow prioritization of response actions and hence minimization of downtime; apart from being a decisive step towards fatalities elimination both by improving infrastructure performance through optimized maintenance and by enabling the activation of a new emergency plan and public alert mechanism for the asset owner as well as the public, this feature is estimated to be potentially accountable for a reduction of financial loss of between 20% and 50%.

Ensuring engineering resilience of assets can only be accomplished through a life-long process of continuous condition assessment, optimization of maintenance, and retrofitting actions that ensure the structure will safely withstand an infrequent perturbation and recover efficiently from the induced damage. To this end, SPEED combines advanced engineering including multi-hazard expertise with intelligent algorithms, state-of-the-art monitoring techniques and Internet of Things in a unified (decision-support) Platform.

While this innovative approach does increase the initial investment cost, ensuring optimized maintenance ultimately saves money throughout the asset’s lifetime: the global economy could save up to $1 trillion annually through improved asset utilization. 

The envisaged system runs through the four R’s of Resilience (Risk reduction, Readiness, Response, and Recovery) and could be thought of as a virtual “pacemaker” built into the infrastructure’s organism to safeguard resilience. Although Resilience is currently regarded as a priority both in Europe and overseas, most products tend to relate it solely to damage minimization during extreme low-probability events; this fact raises reasonable doubts to potential customers as to its business value especially when investment funds are limited.

Our innovative solution combines advanced engineering algorithms with the latest technological solutions available in the areas of Open Standards, Internet of Things, Big Data and Business Analytics to create an integrated decision support system which will bind resilience with the reduction of  real-life operational expenses (while keeping hardware expenses to a minimum) and at the same time ensure loss minimization during extreme events thereby transforming it to a profitable concept with business value.  The system comprises of:

• A data acquisition component gathering parameters necessary for the condition assessment from field sensors (e.g. accelerometers, piezometers, flood meters), available services such as the web (i.e., meteorological information) and UAV’s (high resolution photography and mapping) and other enterprise IT systems
• An algorithmic component, to efficiently process data and reliably assess condition or detect damage zones in case of an extreme event
• A BIM/GIS data access and a presentation component offering real time decision-making tools and allowing interoperability with existing systems.

When in operation, the system will enable a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach to allocating maintenance budget; this alone could reduce road maintenance costs by 10-20% (McKinsey, 2016) thereby greatly increasing the profit margin of road agencies (whose profitability – especially in congested networks – relies on OPEX minimization). At the same time, the system will enable rapid assessment and calculation of damage indices at the most critical locations immediately following disastrous events, which will allow prioritization of response actions and hence minimization of downtime; apart from being a decisive step towards fatalities elimination both by improving infrastructure performance through optimized maintenance and by enabling the activation of a new emergency plan and public alert mechanism for the asset owner as well as the public, this feature is estimated to be potentially accountable for a reduction of financial loss of between 20% and 50%.