Water supply
Valves manipulation
From our experience, many utility companies have problems with manipulation of valves, considering closing and opening of valves during and after the repair work. Specifically, when isolating some part of the water supply system, multiple valves should be closed, in order to discharge the water from the network, so the repairs, construction and other works could be carried out. This indicates that after repairing failures within the water supply system and after reopening a certain number of valves, some of them may remain accidentally closed. After finishing the repairs, opening of only one valve is enough to return the water supply to the customers, but subsequently one can fail to open all previously closed valves. This is even more likely to happen in large companies where one person initially closed and another person reopened the valves on the actual location in the water supply system.
When a particular location within the water supply network is determined, the module for valves manipulation recommends the valves that should be closed and provides a list of the customers who will be left without water.
The module also distinguishes parts of the network and consumers who will completely remain without water, or parts of the network which will have water supply until the reservoir is discharged.
In the case where the valve that should be closed is defective, the algorithm suggests closing of alternative valves.
Use of the module is not limited to only registering and control of the valves manipulation on the actual locations within the water supply network, but also for planning and analyzing of possible events (repairs, construction, installation, etc.), that is, the analysis of the possible consequences of any of these events. Module specifically indicates events where valves manipulation can cause interruption of water supply for "vulnerable" consumers, such as hospitals, schools, factories and the like.