Iv-Infra marked up its third success in securing a RINK contract from the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat/RWS). RINK is a Dutch abbreviation of Risk Analysis for Wet Civil Engineering Works. It involves conducting detailed on-site inspections, making design analyses of all elements of assets and producing quantitative risk and reliability analyses so as to produce an integral RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) analysis of each civil engineering work. The civil engineering works include locks, dams, pumping stations, moving bridges and fixed bridges.
Iv-Infra and RWS carried out a pilot project in 2009 for seven wet civil engineering works at different places in the Netherlands. By way of a follow-up Iv-Infra evaluated the RAMS performance of 23 civil engineering works in the Maas corridor in Limburg province (in association with Witteveen+Bos and Royal Haskoning as subcontractors). The RAMS performance levels were validated by comprehensive inspections, analyses of asset manager data (procedures, faults, information and similar), a check on the structures and installations for compliance with current standards and laws, and an assessment of potential new risks. New risks include changed circumstances (water drainage, remote operation, outsourcing of maintenance, larger ships with larger propeller radiuses). The RAMS performance levels are a measure of the functioning of the assets in the Main Water System and thus form essential data for the RWS Asset Management programme for wet infrastructure.
RWS divided up RINK 2011 into a western and an eastern part, each containing 9 to 12 civil engineering works. Iv-Infra received the highest quality score in the call for tenders and thus submitted the lowest notional tender and was chosen for the western parcel. This cluster contains 9 wet civil engineering works, mostly locks, in a number of locations, including the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, the North Sea Canal and the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. The RINK assessment of these assets will be treated as input and will allow validation of policy decisions and investments in wet infrastructure in the coming years.