Expertise scaled. Small communities served. Every asset on one risk scale.
Bonton Associates, a Baton Rouge civil engineering firm, knows how to tell a levee district what to fix next. The hard part was delivering that judgment to small communities that can’t buy or staff enterprise software. We built AssetIQ, the platform behind Bonton’s new asset management service, so Bonton’s engineers can score every pump, pipe, and generator on one scale and keep each client’s plan current.
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AssetIQ puts pumps, generators, pipes, and manholes on one map, one risk matrix, and one ranked list.
Systems of Record, One Ranked List
One Risk Scale for Pumps and Pipes Alike
Pilot Clients Covering Every Asset Type
Software for Clients to Buy or Run
A proven practice, ready to become a service.
Bonton Associates plans, designs, and manages water and flood protection infrastructure for levee districts, pump stations, and small utilities across South Louisiana. Its engineers already do the analysis these communities need: which assets are most likely to fail, what failure would cost, and where the next dollar does the most good.
The limit was scale. Each assessment was a one-off project, and many clients run everything with one or two people and records on paper. They can’t justify enterprise asset management software, and they can’t staff it. Darius Bonton saw an opening: offer asset management as a service, with Bonton running the platform and clients getting the answers.
This wasn’t a software company looking for a product. It was an engineering firm with a method worth scaling.
What Bonton engaged us to do
- Build the platform behind the service, in Bonton’s own accounts, so Bonton owns the code and the method
- Connect Bonton’s systems for maintenance records, pipe risk analysis, and mapping
- Turn Bonton’s risk method into a scoring engine its engineers can tune for each client
- Deliver results anyone can read, from an operator to a levee commission
Client
Bonton Associates
Industry
Civil Engineering, Water & Flood Infrastructure
Services
Solution Architecture, Systems Integration, Risk Modeling, UX Design, Cloud Deployment
Platforms
Web application, ArcGIS Online dashboards
Integrations
Maintenance Connection, Info360 Asset, ArcGIS Online
Method
Capabilities
About Bonton Associates
Bonton Associates is a Louisiana civil engineering firm, with offices in Baton Rouge and Shreveport, that leverages data and technology to engineer sustainable water and transportation solutions. Its belief: infrastructure is for everyone.
A service platform for clients with almost no data is a different kind of problem.
Most asset management software assumes a utility with clean records and staff to maintain them. Bonton’s clients have neither, which changed what the platform had to do.
01
Clients start from paper
Clean data can’t be assumed. Many clients keep records in spreadsheets, on paper, or in someone’s memory. The platform had to deliver value from thin data on day one, and show honestly where information is missing.
02
One asset, many identities
Nothing ranks until everything matches. The same pump appears in the maintenance system, the map, and the risk model under different IDs. Every asset had to resolve to a single identity before it could be scored.
03
Pipes had a risk model. Pumps didn’t.
Industry tools are built for pipe networks. The pumps, motors, and generators that keep a levee district dry had no seat at the risk table, and no way to be compared with the pipes they serve.
“The best asset management platforms cost six figures a year, so only the largest cities can use them. Everyone else is understaffed and firefighting, with no visibility into what will fail next. Asset management as a service, at scale, doesn’t exist in our market. AssetIQ is the workhorse of the division we built to provide it.”
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One place for Bonton’s engineers to see every client asset, with deep dives by source.
We started with the people the service has to serve.
Before designing anything, our product, research, and engineering leads ran an alignment workshop with Bonton’s leadership and engineers to map the service vision, the systems involved, the barriers to adoption, and who the answers are really for.
The operator
Often one or two people responsible for every pump and pipe, working in firefighting mode. Needs to know what needs attention first, in plain terms.
The public works leader
Owns the budget and the rate conversation. Needs every asset ranked with a cost attached, so each request can be defended.
The board or council
Accountable to residents, funders, and auditors, usually without a technical background. Needs a documented program and a clear, public view of where money goes.
Jobs To Be Done
- When storm season approaches, I want to know which pumps and generators are most likely to fail, so I can fix them first.
- When I build next year’s budget, I want to see every asset ranked with a cost, so I can defend each request.
- When we apply for funding or face an audit, I want to show a documented asset management program, so we qualify and pass.
- When residents ask why, I want to point to a public dashboard, so they can see the reasoning themselves.
“Our pilot produced solid, defensible results, but they never informed the client’s capital decisions. There were layers between us and the client. Now we own that relationship directly.”
The insight that shaped the service: AssetIQ is run by Bonton’s engineers, not handed to clients to operate.
The hard part wasn’t the dashboard. It was one fair score for every asset.
A ranked list is only as good as the data behind it, and Bonton’s data lived in three places that had never been joined.
The constraint: asset records sat in three systems, under three sets of identifiers, and only the pipes had a risk model. A ranked list across all of them didn’t exist without someone building it by hand.
The solve: we built an integration layer that reads each system through its interfaces, resolves every asset to one identity, and scores vertical assets on the same 5×5 likelihood and consequence framework used for pipes. Likelihood comes from recorded condition; consequence comes from the priority operators already assign.
- One asset identity across maintenance, mapping, and risk data
- A 1 to 25 score with five grades, Negligible to Extreme, for pumps and pipes alike
- Assets missing key inputs flagged Not Rated and ordered by consequence, never given a guessed score
- Read-only connections, so no source system is changed
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Settings let Bonton tune scoring for each client’s priorities without a code change.
Four questions, answered at a glance, and tuned by the engineers who own the method.
We set the product bar in plain language: anyone looking at a client’s results should immediately see the answers to the four questions every infrastructure owner asks.
What is at risk?
Every asset on one screen.
- Scored, graded, and color-coded on one scale
- Mapped in ArcGIS alongside the ranked list
What will fail next if we do nothing?
A ranked list from highest risk down.
- Highest-consequence assets first
- High-stakes unknowns surfaced instead of hidden
What will it cost to address?
A risk report that reads like a budget.
- A recommended action on every asset
- An estimated cost, ready for next year’s budget
How much does risk drop if we act?
Where each dollar removes the most risk.
- A projected risk grade after repair
- Scoring tuned per client without a code change
Business value delivered: a new service line for Bonton, and answers for communities that never had them.
AssetIQ is live, with a coastal Louisiana levee district and a city pump station system onboarding. Together they cover every asset type the service handles.
Commercial Impact for Bonton
Asset management delivered as a continuing service, not a one-off assessment.
Communities too small for enterprise software can now be served.
Every ranked list points to the repair, design, and capital work Bonton already does.
The code, the method, and the client relationships stay with Bonton.
Operational Impact for Clients
Pumps, generators, pipes, and manholes ranked on the same scale for the first time.
Every asset carries an action and an estimate, turning a risk report into a budget.
Missing data is flagged, never filled in. Evidence in, answers out.
No licenses, no minimum seats, no system to administer.
An engineering firm’s judgment, once delivered one project at a time, now runs as a service any community can afford.
Explore Bonton Associates.
Infrastructure is for everyone. Bonton Associates leverages data and technology to engineer thoughtful, sustainable water and transportation solutions that help Louisiana communities thrive. It’s a focused practice with expansive capabilities, and with AssetIQ it now runs asset management as a service for communities that could never staff it themselves.
“Our mission is to bring clarity to how communities invest in and manage critical infrastructure.”
Bonton at a glance
- Water engineering and infrastructure services: water, wastewater, stormwater, and flood protection
- A transportation practice for the systems that move people and goods across the region
- Asset management as a service: every pump, pipe, and generator scored, ranked, and costed, with the plan kept current by Bonton’s engineers
- Offices in Baton Rouge and Shreveport, serving municipalities, parishes, levee districts, and utilities
If you’re turning your firm’s expertise into a service, ask about judgment, not just capability.
Professional services firms often know exactly what their clients need, but can only deliver it one engagement at a time. The partner who helps you scale it should be able to answer these questions.
Do they understand your method well enough to encode it?
Your expertise is the product. The platform has to reflect how your people actually judge risk and value, and let them keep tuning it.
Will you own what they build?
A service business can’t depend on someone else’s code. Build in your accounts, under your name, from day one.
Do they design for your clients, not just your staff?
The people reading the results may be an operator, a finance director, or an elected board. Each needs an answer they can act on.
Can they deliver value from the data you actually have?
Real client data is thin and messy. The right partner designs for that from the start instead of waiting for perfect inputs.
These are the questions Digital Scientists is built to answer, and the ones we worked through with Bonton.
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