Reliability
The Auckland New Connections team
Olympic swimming pools are good for more than swimming. They can help comprehend the sheer volume of potable (drinking quality) water Watercare Services Ltd provides Aucklanders every day.
Watercare delivers around 160 Olympic swimming pools of water daily, most of it passing through a water meter.
Since 2016, Fulton Hogan’s 50-strong Auckland New Connections team has installed 85,000 new meters for Watercare customers from Pukekohe to Warkworth, meeting the community’s need for efficient and effective low flow, standard and smart meters.
Around 75 percent are residential, the rest are commercial, and a typical week involves around 200 installations on up to 150 different sites.
Among the impressive numbers lies a smaller but ultimately more important number. It’s the number ‘one’ – which is how each customer sees themselves.
We are conscious that every customer is a customer of Watercare and that we are part of a process that provides an essential for life. It is the human end of potable water infrastructure – a people programme as much as a logistics and engineering exercise, where listening, adaptability, resourcefulness and reliability are at a premium.
As we begin to narrow in on the 100,000 new connections milestone, we would like to recognise and thank the Watercare and Fulton Hogan teams for consistently demonstrating these precious qualities.
Week in, week out they meet customer needs while helping better manage and measure a precious resource using a range of training and development programmes, new technology, new water health testing measures, additional environmental steps such as reusing temporary connections and with an unwavering focus on safety.
This is about people as much as logistics and engineering, where listening, adaptability, resourcefulness and reliability are at a premium.
Simplicity
FHRapidView®
Beneath the surface of the earth lies a hidden world, teeming with life. Down there is also a whole lot of critical infrastructure – from pipes to electrical services – that are also critically important to life above ground.
Over the past 12 months we’ve been pioneering technology that measures and records what’s below (and above) ground in 3D without the need for complex and expensive equipment operated by specialists.
FHRapidView®, developed by our Engineering Solutions team, under lead developer Andrew Wilson, uses familiar technology in the form of smartphones and tablets to put the power into the hands of our field staff.
With this innovation, standard iPhones and iPads are becoming high-precision scanners, creating scaled 3D models that go far beyond the value of a single image. In just minutes, field staff can capture a 3D model of a site, upload it, and have it processed and visualised in BIM or GIS platforms for the whole organisation and our clients to access.
From a quality management perspective, this means instant records of work completed. After severe weather or other incidents, sites can be captured rapidly, enabling fast assessments and mobilisation. Environmentally, reducing repeated site visits cuts down emissions and improves safety by minimising exposure to risks.
Currently, FHRapidView® requires LiDAR-capable devices, but a forthcoming release will open 3D reconstruction to any smartphone user via advanced photogrammetry and our purpose-built 3D marker system.
FHRapidView® is changing the way 3D data is captured, viewed and managed from the field. The “rapid” in FHRapidView® refers not just to speed, but to its impressive uptake – with more than 200 users across New Zealand and Australia already completing 800 scans. It is perhaps not surprising that FHRapidView® won the Group CEO’s Innovation Award at Fulton Hogan’s 2025 Good Work Awards.
With this innovation, standard iPhones and iPads are becoming high-precision scanners, creating scaled 3D models that go far beyond the value of a single image.
Care
Intertwine™
At a time of year when water is on people’s minds (too much rain for campers, not enough for gardeners), we salute the people for whom water is front-and-centre 24/7, year in, year out.
We’re referring, of course, to our water clients. And, at a time that’s about coming together, we want to recognise the collaboration, teamwork and joint problem solving that marked our relationships throughout 2025.
One of the highlights of the year – epitomising the above – was attending the National CCNZ Awards with Hastings District Council – joint finalists for the Excellence in Maintenance and Management of Assets award. When you are singled out for quality of collaboration, an already close bond becomes closer still.
Like a growing number of our water sector clients, such unity has its roots in a deliberate philosophy of purposeful collaboration enshrined in Intertwine™. Intertwine™ is our joint process for aligning team vision and actions, across-the-board.
It is an approach that assumes nothing yet focuses everything that is central to an effective relationship. Like shared goals, open communication, accountability, honesty, early engagement, sharing learning experiences and evolving to meet changing needs.
Its benefits flow through to every aspect of an operation, from joint induction and skill development workshops to integrated digital systems and product and service innovation. In other words, achieving more, more effectively.
With so much to achieve and multiple challenges in New Zealand’s water infrastructure, one thing is useful to reflect on as we approach 2026.
It’s that ‘softer skills’, as much as the tangible physicality of materials and technology, will be central to meeting these challenges.
Roll on 2026!
Our water infrastructure development requires ‘softer skills’ – shared goals, open communication, accountability, shared learning and adaptability – as much as physical materials and technology.
Efficiency
SAVE™ - Smarter Automated Valve Exercising
Across New Zealand tens of thousands of valves are like the traffic lights of our water system. They stop water flowing when we want it stopped and ensure it flows when we want it to flow.
We’ve looked internationally to find a better way of testing valves to keep them in the best possible working order. In other words, working every time (especially in emergencies) and minimising the geographic scale of shutdowns.
We have also set out to protect people from physical harm in manually exercising difficult-to-turn valves.
We have now exercised more than 8,000 valves with our Smarter Automated Valve Exercising system, better known as SAVE™.
Physically, SAVE™ is a truck deck-mounted hydraulic arm which mechanically exercises valves on an automatic programme.
Behind this are its brains. SAVE™ collects detailed data on operational torque, valve condition, open position and operating direction with every valve. This is integrated in real-time into our asset management and GIS systems, so field crews and asset managers can visualise valve health and network needs.
Near real time dashboards, provide clients and our teams with instant visibility on valve status and maintenance progress, supporting performance monitoring and collaborative decision making.
Instead of relying on time-based, blanket renewals, SAVE™ enables targeted renewal and maintenance strategies. Councils’ investment can now be focused where the need is greatest, supporting budget optimisation and infrastructure planning.
Operator safety is increased and fatigue reduced with the machine doing the work and operators away from traffic and other hazards.
There is also reduced customer disruption as shutdowns – planned or emergency – are made more quickly and efficiently without needing to scramble to identify working valves. This is particularly important for people with high needs such as dialysis patients.
Across NZ valves are like the traffic lights of our water system. SAVE™ is the key to ensuring water stops and goes just as it should.
Readiness
Auckland post Cyclone Gabrielle recovery
February marks a sombre anniversary; three years since Cyclone Gabrielle rained and blew havoc on the northern North Island.
Communities in North and West Auckland were among the worst affected, with people losing homes and livelihoods, communities cut off and infrastructure upended.
Today we’re marking a positive side to that terrible event. Within those three years – 1,000 days to be exact – we have completed 61 projects; repairing slips, washouts and destroyed roads, culverts and associated infrastructure, in addition to our daily work maintaining the 1,208km of roads in the northern part of Auckland. For the mathematically minded that’s one recovery project every 16.4 days, like those in these pictures from Twin Wharf and Duck Creek.
We’re marking the completion of the North Urban Recovery project and entering the home straight of the recovery project in West Auckland. In North Urban, alone, it has required 7.7 linear km of timber poles, 1.34 linear km of concrete poles, removing 11,256.54m3 of spoil, pouring 1,045m3 of concrete and tens of thousands of people hours.
So, at a time of milestones, recovery and hope for the future, we would like to thank everyone involved in the post Gabrielle recovery programme – our partners, subcontractors and Auckland Transport for your flexibility, commitment and can-do attitude.
And to the people of Northwest and West Auckland. We ‘ve worked side-by-side with you and are deeply grateful for your appreciation of our efforts and forbearance during projects. We trust the results make it all worthwhile.
At this milestone, thank you to everyone involved in the post Gabrielle recovery for your flexibility, commitment and can-do attitude.