Book excerpt: This study collected information on valves, valve maintenance, and management, and developed a software modeling program for water utilities to develop cost-effective valve management plans. The model can find weaknesses in valve systems, identify critical valves and locations for the addition of new valves, and assess the impacts of the reliability of valves on customer outage. Using this model, it is possible to improve the performance of valve systems cost effectively by adding more valves in the system and improving the maintenance program, and thus, the reliability of valves. Includes CD-ROM with the Strategic Valve Management Model.