South West Water Uses Cloud-Based Analytics to Improve Operations and Regulatory Compliance

Success Story

South West Water uses cloud-based analytics to improve operations and regulatory compliance

Hitachi Water Solutions

Background In addition to introducing competition into the retail space, the market South West Water (SWW) is based in regulator also has a set of key KPIs Exeter, England and provides drinking called Outcome Delivery Incentives water and waste water services (ODIs) that work on a reward/penalty throughout Cornwall and Devon to basis. Each water company must 1.7m customers in 715,000 households report performance to the market Summary and 75,000 businesses, using over regulator on a regular basis and 30,000 km of pipes. SWW is also progress against ODIs is publicly Background responsible for bathing water quality reported at the end of every financial • South West Water is a UK water along over 650 miles of coastline. On year as part of an annual performance utility and leader in water services the waste water side, SWW has over report. and environmental sustainability 650 waste water treatments works, • Provides drinking water and over a 1200 pumping stations and over To support the opportunities and waste water services to 1.7 million 9000 km of public sewers to manage challenges that industry-wide change customers in 715,000 households on a daily basis. creates, Hitachi and SWW will work and 75,000 businesses, using over together over the next three years 30,000 km of pipes to bring the power of near real-time “The key challenge for waste water is analytics to SWW and make company Challenges about managing and protecting the processes more agile. • Stringent regulatory standards environment. Helping, supporting • Aging infrastructure and protecting the environment is Business Challenge engrained in our DNA.” • Siloed data Siloed data inhibits organizational Michael Wigmore, Head of Waste performance and agility Solution Water Service Improvement, South • Cloud-based IoT analytics and Regulatory change in the water West Water business intelligence platform to industry and limited ability to alter inventory, integrate, value, and prices means operational efficiency is prioritize data from across its The UK water industry is undergoing key. Worldwide, water networks tend operations significant change to operate using aging infrastructure, • Leveraging tremendous amount of often 50-100 years old and have In April 2017, under the market existing data to gain insights and regular maintenance and upgrade regulator’s Open Water initiative, make informed decisions cycles that can lead to large capital all business customers and public investment programs. sector, charitable, and not-for-profit Results organisations in England began to Network failures can lead to leakage, • Faster response to three pollution be able to choose their water and pollution incidents and supply incidents sewerage retailer for the first time, interruptions for customers due to • Improving regulatory compliance and water companies have had to unforeseen problems. Utilities today and avoiding penalties separate wholesale and retail activities are excellent at reacting to challenges • 24% reduction in customer leakage to support this directive. Discussion is across the network infrastructure and cases ongoing about whether to open up the providing rapid maintenance when it is • Predicting equipment failure market for domestic customers in the cost effective to do so. • Near real time decision making future as well. Moving forward, the use of data as an and compliance targets. For SWW, it Key Result #1 asset to maximise performance and is important to capitalise on existing Complying with regulations at a intervene before an incident occurs is investments and data held in SCADA, lower cost becoming increasingly important. The GIS, sensors, telemetry, and IT systems good news for utilities is that there is to minimise infrastructure investment. With the help of Hitachi, SWW is no shortage of data captured from As SWW already collects a tremendous increasingly able to deliver near operational and IT systems. The challenge amount of data on its water network, the real-time analytics and centralised is that this data is often siloed and difficult key area of focus is not collecting new information to operational end users and to get into the hands of front-line teams data but rather better leveraging the data management teams to improve company to make effective decisions quickly or it already has. performance. One key area of increased performance is cost reduction and predictions well in advance of any issues. Using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform increased efficiencies along the value Failure to adequately anticipate and to reduce upfront investment required, chain. prevent service disruptions as well as Hitachi is helping SWW inventory, respond appropriately to disruptions that integrate, value, and prioritize data from With a more automated data collection do occur decreases customer satisfaction across its operations. Cloud technologies and integration process, SWW is able and can lead to penalties from the are enabling SWW to quickly and to reduce the cost of managing and regulator. affordably centralize this data in a data monitoring key assets such as waste water treatment plants and pumping SWW highlight the challenge in today’s lake and then visualize it in near real-time stations. It is also able to more efficiently rapid changing environment. with easy-to-use interactive dashboards. These dashboards then enable SWW highlight exceptions and take action, decision makers to become more agile, such as detecting and managing water “We collect huge volumes of data on with actionable insights and improved leakages, with greater situational water quality, network performance, decision-making capabilities to increase awareness of its network. customer service, maintenance and a operational performance and better track Improved management of waste water variety of other measures, and it can KPIs against targets. “We’re leveraging the operations using one of the solutions be a challenge to consolidate and power of the Microsoft Azure platform delivered has allowed SWW to respond analyse these sources of information from both an advanced analytics and to three pollution incidents faster. in a cost effective manner” data collection perspective. That helps Centralised insight across 165 sites Kevin Nankivell, Head of Information us get up and running much quicker using signals every 15 minutes from Technology at South West Water. and innovate rapidly together.” – Claire over 3000 telemetry points analyzing 57 Thomas, Business Development Director, million rows of data allows these faster Hitachi Consulting responses. This covers the top 10% of Solution Hitachi and SWW are creating an industry sites so far and about 5% of telemetry data model to store information in a points, so there is enormous potential to Leveraging data as a strategic asset central location for re-use across various expand the solution together. Hitachi Consulting is working with SWW use cases, creating a single version of “We have been able to respond to three to develop a cloud-based IoT analytics the truth and automating some of the pollutions [events] much faster than we and business intelligence platform decision making processes. This model would have been able to in the past.” -- that will help SWW make faster, more will provide the foundation for future use says Michael Wigmore, Head of Waste informed decisions to improve customer cases, including predictive maintenance. Water Service Improvement, South West service, predict operational performance, By applying advanced analytics to Water. deploy maintenance solutions more SCADA and telemetry data, SWW aim effectively and comply with industry to more accurately predict events that regulations. impact operational performance and act Water utilities must always balance cost accordingly, reducing maintenance costs of service with customer satisfaction and increasing customer satisfaction. Key Result #2 Conclusion Addressing problems before they Hitachi and SWW have teamed together happen to co-create innovative solutions that One key objective of SWW’s leverage SWW’s data as a strategic asset engagement with Hitachi is to reduce and Hitachi’s expertise in analytics, maintenance costs and increase business intelligence and the water network performance by leveraging industry to improve operational predictive maintenance practices. performance, increase customer Maintaining equipment or infrastructure service levels and ensure regulatory on a regular basis, whether it needs compliance. it or not, can be costly. Performing unplanned corrective maintenance “We had the domain knowledge, when infrastructure components [SWW] had a very specific have already failed can also be costly. knowledge on the local market and Using sensor data and proven industry jointly, we really built something algorithms can predict equipment that makes a difference.” failure and optimize maintenance in a Itay Inbar, SVP Sales & Solutions, cost-effective manner. The goal is to Hitachi Consulting tackle problems before they happen. SWW is working to reduce repair costs across the board, reduce leakage About Hitachi Consulting volumes and reduce the (already Hitachi Consulting is the global solutions infrequent) number of events that and professional services organization impact the public. Increased availability within Hitachi Ltd., a global innovation of network performance data and leader in industrial and information altering when KPIs change puts technology solutions and an early decisions in the hands of operational pioneer of the Internet of Things. Hitachi teams. Workforce planning teams will Consulting is a business integrator for be able to prioritise jobs based on the IoT era and a catalyst for digital quantified impact and deploy operatives transformation. Using our deep domain more effectively. So far, SWW has seen knowledge, we collaborate with leakage reductions of up to 24% across clients to help them innovate faster, the network delivered through actions maximize operational efficiency and prompted from better operational realize measurable, sustainable business insight. and societal value. As a consulting- SWW is also working to reduce led solutions company, we can help customer contact costs. With fewer you leverage data as a strategic asset service disruptions, SWW should need to drive competitive differentiation, to field fewer incoming customer calls. customer loyalty and growth. Visit hitachiconsulting.com