Article
Make the complex simple
Like most other modern water utilities, you probably have access to an abundance of data from your water and/or wastewater network as well as external sources about performance and network status. But you might not know how to access all of it or, more importantly, how to combine, analyse and utilise the data to optimise your daily work.
Without an efficient way of navigating your unfiltered data, you might be wasting enormous amounts of money. Let’s look at some of the reasons why:
1. First of all, time is money
Manual data handling is time consuming and the time you spend manually looking through data could be spent on other tasks that can bring more value to your water utility.
2. Missed opportunities
Data is available from different departments, but without a system to centralise it all, you may be missing out on the chance to spot important patterns and trends that can give you valuable insights into the status and performance of your network.
3. Endless alarms
Even with a standard data acquisition system, you may be spending valuable time navigating unnecessary alarms, if these are not customised to your needs.
4. Human error
Manual data handling comes with a risk of human error that can create a ripple effect through other departments and cause others to prioritise their time inefficiently.
How much time is your water utility wasting on unnecessary data handling?
If one employee spends 1 hour every day on unnecessary data handling, in a year, that amounts to the equivalent of more than 7 weeks of full-time work.
Solution: Ensure high-quality data available to the right people at the right time
To utilise your data efficiently, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that data from all departments is available to anyone in your organisation who may benefit from it.
Secondly, you need to make sure that the data is presented in a way that is easily readable so you can spend your time acting on issues rather than searching for them. There is lots of time and money to be saved by automating the process of filtering your data with a data analytics software that can help you detect anomalous situations and changes in patterns over time, and issue alarms only when something needs your attention.
Automating your data analysis will also reduce the risk of human error and ensure that you are basing your decisions and prioritisations on high-quality data, whether you are determining where to search for leaks or prioritising which pipes to renew for the biggest return on investment.