In an Expert Focus article for Waterbriefing,  Iain Stewart, Principal Utilities Expert EMEA, Teradata explains why the smart new water power is data integrated from multiple sources for multiple analytics applications – and why the water companies need to become truly data-driven.

Iain Stewart : Water utilities face a constant battle to cut network operating costs while dealing with increased competition and ever more complex regulatory demands.

Yet only now are they waking up to exploiting their wealth of data to help them meet the challenges they face across all these areas.

It is a field in which power companies have led the way, taking a strategic approach to data integration and analytics in response to similar challenges. Having seen how power companies have made a success of these projects, it is time water companies followed in their footsteps by becoming truly data-driven.

However, as with many large enterprises, water utilities are hampered because their data is conserved in silos by individual departments. It is here that they can take advantage of the understanding and experience developed by early adopters within their own industry and the power sector.

Where the gains will come from

At the outset, therefore, it is important for water companies to learn from these more mature operators and recognise that there are three main areas where data integration and analytics will bring major gains. The first of these is asset management, which includes optimising maintenance and operation, along with improved planning for new assets. It also encompasses supply chain optimisation.

Secondly, customer management can be greatly boosted through the achievement of better service levels and the reduction of complaints. Further gains in this area of operations come from increased efficiency of water management and other green initiatives.

Finally, data integration and the deployment of advanced analytics allow a water utility to vastly improve  regulatory performance. This is chiefly through analysing and measuring performance against current regulatory KPIs – including root cause analysis of performance versus existing regulation. There are also major gains to be had in the organisation’s capacity for regulatory modelling, so it can map out requirements and resources in relation to the future.

Bringing it all together

Unfortunately, the compartmentalised approach to data which is common in the majority of water companies, stands in the way of obtaining all these benefits. Individual departments use only their own data held in departmental systems to answer only their own business questions.

Even those water utilities that have started to break down the departmental silos have a secondary problem in that they are struggling to understand where to start conducting analytics on their data.

Collectively, a water company’s different departments are floating on a great lake of high-value data gathered from customer systems, GIS systems, operational systems, telemetry systems, asset registers, regulatory data, even data in spreadsheets.

Integrating the data from all of these different silos, along with external information from weather and environmental monitoring systems makes for an infinitely more valuable data set once it is in one place and fully accessible to everyone. Each department can obtain far better answers to its own business questions because they are based on a much richer data set.

Boosting revenue and operations

An example of this cross-fertilisation is analysis of  of regulatory data alongside sensor data from machines to help achieve better operation of assets and enhanced revenue. This  can also minimise regulatory fines, because everyone can answer their questions more effectively for the good of the overall organisation.

The integration of data from different sources within the business also means it is possible to identify all customers affected by a severe interruption in the mains supply. Messages can be sent out to customers’ phones or through social media, explaining the position and the remedial steps being undertaken.

Having this capability gives water utilities substantial advantages when meeting regulatory targets around incidents such as sudden leaks and shortages.

In new B2B retail markets, integration means water utilities can better scope and provide bespoke packages to major customers such as factories  or supermarket chains which now expect a variety of enhanced services.

Powerful analytics

To achieve these gains water companies need to use both traditional advanced analytics and discovery analytics, all running on a single integrated view of data.

Advanced analytics are used in situations where the problem or question that must be solved is well defined but challenges remain around integration and the capacity to analyse large volumes of data quickly. The aim is to produce more accurate, useful and timely answers to such business questions.

Discovery analytics, by contrast, mines data for insights – putting data together to look for patterns without preconceptions, rather than asking specific questions. Data scientists work with business experts to determine what these patterns indicate and how what were “unknown unknowns” can now be employed to yield benefits.

The importance of expertise

If they are to make rapid advances and develop a strategic approach to data integration and analytics, water companies need to leverage the expertise already developed in power and other asset based industries.

Once they have started absorbing these lessons, water companies should then embark on small-scale projects and focus on obvious opportunities or challenges that create quick return-on-investment. This way they will enable a wider strategic programme that quickly becomes self-funding.

Importantly, they will also be laying the foundations for a strategic programme that will overcome departmental and cultural boundaries to truly unleash the power of data.