DECISION ENHANCEMENT IN WATER ASSET MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT FOR TRANSITIONAL COUNTRIES: A CASE STUDY OF UGANDA AND KENYA

The main purpose of this study was to develop a decision enhancement studio that facilitates complex asset management decisions through providing services to enhance decision-making. Focus was on the limited maintenance management in water assets in transitional countries. Issues included ineffective decision making; inadequate collaboration among stakeholders on decisions that matter; leakages in the pipe networks, ageing infrastructure; and high levels of non-revenue water. This research uses an engaged scholarship research paradigm with design science research philosophy. Engaged scholarship is descriptive, collaborative, design & evaluate as well as dialogical action research between academics, sector managers and the affected community. Scholarship means something further than research, and engagement is the avenue for scholarship to flourish in studying complex, contemporary social problems. Insights from design science paradigm were effectuated with inductive-hypothetic research strategy to facilitate problem initiation, abstraction, theory formulation, solution implementation and evaluation. The studio was designed, prototyped and implemented in three water utilities in Kenya and Uganda. The evaluation results revealed that the decision enhancement studio for water asset management is usable since it provides guidelines for effective decision making and it is easy to use; the studio is useful since it enhances decisions which lead to reduction in non-revenue water, leakages, response time, property damage, risk of contamination and more stabilized water pressure.