Stop Replacing Assets Too Late.
Or Too Early.
U.S. utilities own $2.5 trillion in infrastructure, much of it installed between the 1950s and 1980s. The DOE estimates that 70% of power transformers exceed 25 years of age. Water mains break 240,000 times per year. Gas utilities carry $300+ billion in legacy pipe replacement obligations. Replacing everything is financially impossible , but every unplanned failure costs $1,200-$3,500 per minute in customer interruption costs and accumulates the SAIDI minutes your PUC uses to evaluate performance. Argus reads the story written in every asset's sensor data, maintenance records, and environmental exposure to predict failures before they happen and extend asset life where it is safe to do so , targeting the 5% of assets that cause 40% of your unplanned outages.
The right maintenance at the right time. Not too early (wasting 15-25% of remaining asset life), not too late (causing preventable outages). Data-driven asset decisions that reduce costs, prevent failures, and are defensible in your next rate case.
Every Asset. Every Utility Type. One Registry.
From a 500 MVA power transformer at a transmission substation to a 2-inch HDPE gas service line under a residential driveway , Argus maintains a living registry of every asset in your infrastructure with real-time health data, full maintenance history, and failure probability forecasting. No more siloed databases where your electric asset data lives in GIS, your water asset data lives in CMMS, and your gas pipeline data lives in a separate integrity management system. One registry. One truth. One place to answer the question: which assets need attention today?
A Health Score for Every Asset. A Reason Behind Every Number.
Every asset receives a continuously updated health score from 0 to 100. But a black-box number is worse than useless , it erodes trust when engineers cannot validate why a brand-new recloser scored 72 or why a 40-year-old transformer scored 68. Argus explains every score: which factors are driving it down (accelerating DGA trend, overdue maintenance, environmental exposure), which factors are holding it up (recent refurbishment, below-rated loading), and what specific action will have the greatest impact on improving the score. Your asset managers get defensible, transparent health assessments they can present in rate case testimony , not opaque AI predictions they cannot explain to a PUC commissioner.
Health Score
Recommended Action
Replace
0-25Asset has reached end of economic useful life , repair cost exceeds 60% of replacement cost, or failure would cause unacceptable safety/reliability consequences. Capital budget allocation recommended.
Refurbish
26-40Major maintenance or component replacement (e.g., transformer re-winding, pump impeller replacement, valve actuator overhaul) can extend asset life by 10-20 years at 30-50% of replacement cost.
Repair
41-60Specific component repair addresses the identified deficiency , oil leak repair, gasket replacement, bearing replacement, cathodic protection rectifier repair. Targeted intervention that restores health score by 15-25 points.
Monitor
61-100Asset is healthy and performing within specifications. Continue routine inspection schedule. Do not spend O&M dollars on assets that do not need intervention , redirect resources to the critical and poor categories.
Score Contributing Factors
Age relative to expected useful life (nameplate age / fleet-average life for the asset class)
Maintenance history compliance (overdue PMs, skipped inspections, incomplete work orders)
Sensor readings and trend analysis (DGA for transformers, vibration for rotating equipment, wall thickness for pipelines)
Environmental exposure conditions (coastal salt spray, flood zone location, chemical atmosphere, UV degradation)
Loading relative to rated capacity (peak loading vs. nameplate, cumulative thermal stress, emergency overload events)
Historical failure rates for this specific asset class, manufacturer, and vintage across your fleet and industry data
See Failures Before They Happen.
Reactive maintenance , running assets until they fail , costs 3-10x more than preventive or predictive maintenance (DOE Federal Energy Management Programme data). An unplanned transformer failure during a summer peak load event cascades into a multi-hour outage affecting thousands of customers, an emergency replacement at 2x normal cost, and SAIDI minutes that cannot be recovered. Argus analyses patterns across sensor data (dissolved gas analysis, vibration signatures, partial discharge, oil quality), maintenance history, weather forecasts, and loading trends to forecast which assets are most likely to fail within 30, 90, and 365 days , so you replace them during a planned outage window, not at 2 AM during a heat wave.
30-Day Failure Forecast
Transformer TX-1482
Dissolved gas analysis shows accelerating hydrogen and acetylene generation , key combustible gas ratio indicates thermal fault exceeding 700 degrees C. 28 years in service, loaded at 94% of nameplate during summer peaks.
Pump PM-0923
Vibration amplitude exceeding baseline by 340% at bearing frequency , consistent with bearing inner race defect. Pump efficiency has dropped 12% over 6 months, indicating progressive mechanical degradation.
Valve VL-3341
Age at 92% of expected useful life for this valve type (cast iron butterfly). Last exercised 14 months ago , exceeding the 12-month exercise cycle. Similar valves in this vintage have shown stem corrosion leading to inoperability.
Greater than 70% probability of failure within 30 days. These assets should be scheduled for immediate intervention , replacement, refurbishment, or load transfer to reduce stress.
40-70% probability of failure within 30 days. Schedule inspection and prepare replacement materials. Reduce loading if operationally feasible. Monitor daily for deterioration acceleration.
15-40% probability of failure within 30 days. Include in next maintenance cycle. Ensure replacement materials are in warehouse inventory. Monitor weekly for trend changes.
Less than 15% probability of failure within 30 days. Normal operations. Routine inspection schedule adequate. These assets are not consuming your attention or your budget.
Contributing Factors
- Accelerating degradation trend in sensor data (DGA gases doubling rate, vibration amplitude exceeding 3x baseline, increasing partial discharge activity)
- Approaching or exceeding expected useful life with deteriorating condition indicators (not age alone , a well-maintained 50-year transformer can outperform a neglected 20-year unit)
- Loading above rated capacity during peak periods , cumulative thermal stress accelerates insulation aging per IEEE C57.91 loading guide
- Severe weather forecast for asset location , ice loading, wind stress, flood risk, lightning exposure increase short-term failure probability
- Similar asset class failures in your fleet or in industry data , when one unit from a specific manufacturer/vintage fails, its siblings are statistically more likely to follow
- Overdue maintenance or inspection , a missed DGA test means you are flying blind on a transformer that may be producing combustible gases
Maintenance That Meets Every Standard.
Preventive maintenance is not just good engineering practice , it is a regulatory mandate with real consequences for non-compliance. NERC CIP requires documented maintenance of BES Cyber Systems and physical security measures. PHMSA requires integrity assessments on transmission pipelines within specific reassessment intervals. EPA SDWA mandates calibration and maintenance of water quality monitoring equipment. Missing a single compliance-mandated maintenance task creates audit findings that can snowball into consent decrees and enforcement actions. Argus tags every maintenance task with the compliance framework that mandates it , so your maintenance planner knows exactly which tasks are compliance-critical and which tasks are discretionary.
Maintenance That Meets Every Standard.
CIP-006 physical security maintenance, CIP-007 systems security management (patch management, malware prevention), CIP-010 configuration management, and CIP-014 physical security for transmission substations
Monitoring equipment calibration, treatment process equipment maintenance, distribution system flushing and valve exercising, storage tank inspection per AWWA D100/D110
Pipeline integrity assessments per 49 CFR 192 Subpart O (7-year reassessment cycle), cathodic protection system maintenance (annual rectifier inspection, close-interval survey), valve maintenance, and emergency equipment testing
European maintenance terminology standard , maintenance classified as corrective (after failure), preventive (before failure), condition-based (triggered by measurement), and predetermined (fixed interval). KPIs per EN 15341.
Asset management system standard requiring documented lifecycle management, risk-based maintenance strategy, performance monitoring, and continuous improvement. Increasingly cited in PUC rate case proceedings as evidence of prudent asset stewardship.
Transformer oil analysis
Water quality sensor calibration
Gas pipeline integrity inspection
Substation security assessment
Your Assets Tell a Story. Argus Reads It.
U.S. utility infrastructure requires an estimated $2.5 trillion in investment over the next 20 years. No utility can replace everything , budgets, rate recovery constraints, and construction capacity limit capital programmes to 2-3% of asset base per year. The utilities that manage this challenge successfully share one capability: they know which assets need attention now, which can safely defer, and which should run to failure because the consequence of failure is low. That knowledge , transparent, defensible, and data-driven , is what separates a utility that earns its allowed return from one that faces prudency disallowances.
Data-driven asset decisions reduce unplanned outages by 25-45%, extend infrastructure useful life by 15-25%, and provide the rate case testimony evidence that PUC commissioners demand when approving capital recovery. Every health score. Every failure forecast. Every maintenance recommendation. Transparent. Explainable. Defensible.
Stop guessing which assets need attention. Start knowing , with the confidence to defend every investment decision in front of your board, your PUC, and your customers.
Talk to an Asset Management SpecialistIntegrates with your existing GIS (Esri, Schneider), SCADA/historian (OSIsoft PI, Aveva), EAM (SAP PM, Maximo, Oracle eAM, Cityworks), and CMMS systems. Supports electric, water, and gas asset types. Deployed on-premises or in sovereign cloud.