Decision model for the renewal of navigation lock components_The decision making process: renovation, replacement or standardization within existing navigation locks in the Netherlands

In Western countries, major parts of the waterway network, such as navigation locks, bridges, and weirs, are ageing and need to be replaced to ensure waterway performance. In the 1930’s many navigation locks were built in the Netherlands. Rijkswaterstaat manages 137 of these navigations locks. Rijkswaterstaat started a program called MultiWaterWerk (MWW), in order to renovate or replace 52 navigation locks in the Netherlands in the next two decades.
The goal of MultiWaterWerk is to obtain a better reliability and availability, lower life cycle costs and a more predictable estimation of the construction cost and time. To reach this goal, a new possibility is added to the current possibilities; renovation and regular replacement. This new possibility is called standardization. Standardization is a form of replacement, however in case of standardization it will be replaced by a standard.
The goal of this thesis is to develop a final decision model which helps the asset manager to choose between the possibilities renovation, replacement or standardization of navigation lock components for the MultiWaterWerk program. Furthermore, the added value of standardization of a cluster with respect to replacement will be investigated.
In order to define what the relevant aspects are for the decision making process of the infrastructure and how the current these decisions are made. Information is gathered and discussed about the decision making process of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the management strategies of Rijkswaterstaat. In addition to that, interviews with experts are conducted.
The final decision model provides an overview of the total costs of all the aspects and shows the optimum solution for when to renovate, replace or standardize a component. Furthermore, the final model shows the minimum number of navigation locks that needs to be standardized, in order to make it a more feasible solution than replacement and renovation.