What to do about your aging and corroding assets is not always clear.
Utility leaders understand that their infrastructure is aging and corroding. Unfortunately, the best path for asset management has not always been clear for decision makers. Until now.
The Old Way:
Operate Your Assets to Failure
Utilities are frustrated. The sheer number of aging assets in this country is simply too large to replace in a timely manner, so they operate them until they fail.
Utility leaders understand that infrastructure ages and corrodes. However, they may believe that an O & M strategy to address the issues proactively, is simply not worth their investment. Their only option has been to operate the asset until there is a failure. This is expensive, unpredictable, and dangerous and utilities are tired of it.Here is why the old way, is not a wise way to manage your assets:
50+
The average age of the infrastructure that delivers power to our business and homes is 40 years old now but ¼ are 50+ years old. Galvanized steel only provides effective corrosion resistance for 50-70 years.
6%
6-10% of the infrastructure in North America is defective enough to fail today: from wood, steel and composite transmission lines, to lattice towers, light poles at national “Big Box” retailers, and everything in
$10x
Replacement or repairs -- after a failure occurs -- can cost ten times more than the cost of extending the life of your assets long before you face problems.
Schedule Discovery Call
The New Way: Extend the Life of Your Assets (Before Failure)
Life extension programs, like coatings that help stop corrosion, can now be capitalized. Capitalize your investment in integrity.
Exo’s asset life extension programs can be capitalized.
Let Exo pay attention to your infrastructure and extend the life of your assets today before there is a failure tomorrow. Explore ways Exo can help:
- Tower and Pole Coating Programs
- Load Transfer Brackets
- Caissons
- Welded Corrosion Collars
Asset Life Extension Means Confidence and Momentum, no Matter What Tomorrow Brings
Investing in the integrity of your assets today, through Exo life extension programs, gives you confidence in your infrastructure, no matter what tomorrow brings. It also means substantial time/cost savings, creating progress and forward momentum for your organization.
- Save your organizations millions, extending the life of assets, instead of replacing assets
- Predict problems (and budget) for your assets before you have a problem
- Upgrade the rate-payers’ experience
- Avoid bad press, legal expenses, and the negative impact failures have on your brand
- Communicate, you are a person of integrity, willing to do the right thing for the community
- Strengthen your reputation and career
How to Begin Extending the Life of Your Assets vs. Throwing Them Away
Extending the life of your assets is easy with Exo’s life extension coating program
Talk to an Exo subject matter expert to get started.
- Schedule a discovery call where an Exo subject matter expert can ask questions about your assets.
- Exo assesses your system and designs a pilot coating program that fits your vision, timing and budget.
- Exo executes a life extension program that saves money and creates momentum for you and your organization.
Additional Services
Critical services Exo provides
- Quality Assurance
Our team verifies the quality of your assets during all stages of fabrication with thorough in-plant quality control. Exo is experienced establishing quality assurance best practices that ensure greater structural strength and longevity for every asset you buy, create, or manage. - Structural Inspection
Whether it’s an in-plant inspection during asset manufacturing, a field, ground based inspection with our full array of visual and nondestructive testing (NDT) methodologies, or an aerial inspection via man-baskets or drone/UAV, we are committed to asset protection. Our proprietary inspection software application allows Exo to deliver accurate, actionable inspection data every time. - Field Service and Repair
Your structural assets inevitably deteriorate and/or age. They become a financial and potentially legal risk to your organization. To keep steel poles, towers, and other infrastructure assets reliable, you need a team ready for in-field service and repair. Exo has a full range of field repair, infrastructure asset upgrade, and structural strengthening services options under one roof. - Wood Pole Services
Without regular maintenance and inspection of your wood poles, you could be putting the public at risk. Don’t wait for a catastrophic failure. Take proactive action to protect your wood poles and their components with a wood pole asset management program with Exo. - Data-Driven Asset Management Programs
A comprehensive approach that includes engineering and construction, asset inspection, remediation, and repair. Comprehensive, holistic asset management prevents structural damage and catastrophic failure that impacts your bottom line and harms your reputation. - Ex-Tend™ – Capitalized Life Extension Program
Extend the life of your assets. With Ex-Tend™, Exo offers a data-driven, full lifecycle asset management approach. You’ll know the condition of poles, towers, and all other structural assets, have a full understanding of any risks you face, and be equipped with a strategy for managing and minimizing that risk. Maximize your return on investment, prevent accidents and asset failure, and get results that improve your bottom line.
Our People
Exo’s is built on the work of innovative engineers and an army of world- class inspectors and field technicians.
Between our engineering team and our field technicians, Exo has the capacity to solve the most complicated problems our clients will ever face. More importantly perhaps, are the dangerous issues Exo helps our clients avoid altogether.
Exo’s Skilled Field Technicians
Exo has the most skillfully trained inspectors and field service crews in North America. The experience Exo has gained by inspecting and remediating over 1,000,000 assets has enabled us to assess problems, engineer solutions, and execute the technical work that addresses whatever issues your organization is facing.
Exo’s Engineering Team is World Class
Exo has a team of experienced subject matter experts, engineers, and technologists. This team is comprised of SEI fellows that lead on numerous codes and standards committees, hold dozens of U.S. pattens, and are recognized nationally by their peers. In addition, they have developed a proprietary software application that delivers readily usable data for our client’s assets. This provides our clients with the power to make accurate and valuable predictions about the health of their infrastructure, saving millions of dollars and avoiding the unnecessary consequence of catastrophic failure (on their watch).
Exo’s Clients
Premiere companies, municipalities, investor owned utilities and top 10 U.S. retailers all benefit from Exo’s professional experience, innovative engineers, and field technicians ensuring the integrity of their infrastructure.
Case Study: Asset Life Extension through Below Grade Coatings
Direct embedded poles require a protective coating applied at the factory that prevents corrosion on the steel shaft at or just below grade, where soil conditions are the most corrosive.
Coatings Failure Factors
There are a number of different factors that can lead to premature coatings failure. And while steel poles are engineered for a minimum fifty year lifecycle, the coating systems rarely last that long. Variables that may contribute to coatings failure consist of incorrect material specifications, fabrication defects, and installation or construction errors. The following is a case study outlining a recent coatings inspection and repair project in northern Iowa.
The Problem Exo’s Client was Facing
This utility client had 160 weathering steel direct embed transmission poles built in 2007. Though still relatively young in age, these poles demonstrated visible coating degradation above grade. On nearly all of the poles, the coating was peeling and flaking aways from the surface of the steel pole. The client’s primary concern was “wall loss” on the exposed pole shaft that could potentially lead to structural failure. Exo was engaged to perform a steel pole corrosion assessment which included the measurement and documentation of any wall loss damage caused by corrosion. We calculated the remaining strength capacity of the towers and also restored the coating system back to its original condition and fully protective capacity.
The Solution
To accomplish this, we excavated around the pole to determine the extent and depth of the failed coating. After removing the degraded material, NDT was performed to measure wall loss via ultrasonic testing and a VWAC gauge. Through this inspection, we determined that the corrosion was discovered early enough such that no immediate structural risk was present for these poles based on their current loading and engineered design capacity. Our technicians applied a new coating and successfully filled the excavated hole.
The Results
In this case, the client acted quickly and we repaired the coatings and stopped further corrosion damage before the poles were weakened to the point of needing structural repair or replacement, saving the asset owner enormous sums of money. To avoid the risks associated with a coatings failure and saving yourself critical time and money, a full life cycle approach to steel pole corrosion assessment and remediation is essential. Build a robust quality assurance plan that prevents defects like the one above from impacting your project. Verify the construction teams are installing the assets properly and to your specification. Proactively monitor the poles with NDT inspection in case certain conditions change. And catch and repair issues early while they can be fixed cost effectively.
Your Next Step
Take the next step today:
Justin Evans
Director, Strategic Accounts & Business Development