Over the last two years, the UK water industry has come under increasing scrutiny from Ofwat, the water regulator, over ongoing sewage spills in England’s waterways. Ofwat can fine companies up to 10% of their annual turnover and now three water companies have been hit with a total of £168 million in fines. The fines can be appealed and reduced if the water companies can demonstrate they are taking action to tackle these ongoing sewage spills. What can they do to restore trust? We believe technology will be a key answer to this question and we’ve written about it in our new white paper ‘AMP8’s Unprecedented Opportunities’. This is an extract from the document, which you can download and read at your leisure.
3 things Ofwat wants
This new white paper looks at the current AMP8 funding cycle, which represents a unique opportunity for water professionals in the UK to secure funding for three key priorities:
- Digitalization: Complete digitalization and data-centric working methods
- CSOs: Instead of reacting to oil spills, they should proactively prevent them before they happen
- Nature-based solutions: Integrate Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) into your regular workflows.
The first pillar of opportunities revolves around digitalization, which is the focus of this article.
For water professionals, there is a technology spectrum that ranges from doing everything manually using data entry, site logs and spreadsheets to having a separate digital system for every aspect of operations. Most water professionals and most organizations already know where they stand on this technology spectrum. Put simply, in the coming funding cycle, they will either invest more money in digitization or invest more time in less efficient workarounds to get their jobs done.
Position yourself in the technology lifecycle
No matter where you are on the journey to digital maturity, securing funding for data-centric systems is the first step. The next step is changing your company’s internal status quo and ways of working. But AMP8 is a real opportunity to secure funding for organizational change that will push everyone you work with further toward technological efficiency.
Perhaps more importantly, AMP8 presents an unprecedented opportunity to recruit the next generation of water workers. The UK water industry employs some of the most experienced engineers in the world, but it still struggles with a talent shortage as it needs to replace its ageing workforce with young people who have grown up with, and expect, the best technological tools.
This talent shortage particularly affects the areas of data analytics, AI and digital development. Water utilities need more digital leaders in their organizations who can help them build connected systems and adopt data-centric processes that will stop them from collecting data from disparate sources and relying on outdated technologies.
The promise of AI and ML
Despite these workforce challenges, the overall technology outlook for the water industry is positive. No matter where you and your company are on the technology spectrum, the future for infrastructure design and operations looks bright considering advances in AI and ML that were unforeseeable just a few years ago. Platforms that enable collaboration and knowledge sharing are already transforming the way the water industry works, much as they have in the energy and construction industries, and these platforms are evolving rapidly.
Essentially, the technological tools embedded in these platforms are enhanced by artificial intelligence and machine learning. These revolutionary technologies can be used in almost everything from preventing accidents to reducing the time spent checking and investigating problems to developing better drainage systems.
While it may seem that the early stages of AI and ML are flooded with an excess of marketing hype, there is no denying that these innovations are profound and will have a lasting impact on the water industry. If you are not yet an early adopter and are still skeptical, we believe the chances are high that the majority of UK water professionals will be relying on AI-powered design tools in some way over the next two years. A full 66% of our clients believe that AI will be essential to their work in 2-3 years.
In some ways, these new (and disruptive) technologies offer organizations early in their digital transformation journeys the opportunity to potentially advance one or even two phases of the traditional technology adoption cycle. We believe the early adopters will be most rewarded.
Innovations are progressing rapidly
As early adopters of technology ourselves – and selling software to the water industry – we are naturally biased about the potential of this technology. We believe that near-complete digitization of the water industry is necessary and inevitable. While this may not happen as quickly as the technology evangelists hope, we are very optimistic about the digitization gains that AMP8 will unlock and we are working quickly to develop solutions that help water professionals move further along the technology application lifecycle. Innovation for the water industry is here now and it is advancing at an extraordinary pace.
Since Innovyze joined Autodesk two years ago, we have made significant progress together:
- Remarkable cloud efficiency: We take a cloud-first approach that has already enabled us to build next-generation SaaS apps that dramatically improve the user experience and supercharge the data analytics capabilities we offer.
- Interoperability and collaboration: We’ve connected applications across the Autodesk platform and brought them closer together to provide significantly improved interoperability. We want to break down barriers between industries and connect office workers with engineers in the field so everyone can work together toward common goals.
- API and Coding: We’ve expanded our APIs and encouraged code-savvy customers to explore SQL and Ruby to gain automation benefits. We want developers to be able to build what they need for both day-to-day operations and special projects.
To name just a few examples, in the last year alone, our software for water professionals has made huge advances. InfoDrainage added a groundbreaking Machine Learning Deluge tool, while InfoWorks ICM (along with InfoWater Pro) introduced lightning-fast cloud simulations, removing long-standing computer processing barriers. Now our customers can run large simulation batches significantly faster, in minutes rather than hours. We have more technical advances in the pipeline, such as adding AI CCTV VAPAR technology to Info360 Asset.
In addition, our water software is becoming more tightly integrated with Esri GIS mapping technologies and with Autodesk AEC Collection apps such as Civil 3D and InfraWorks. These integrations have been joined in recent years by new next-generation SaaS apps such as Info360 Asset for asset management, Info360 Insight for deep operational analytics, and Info360 Plant, which is specifically designed for utility operations efficiency. We are very excited about these advances, which have been made relatively quickly, and even more excited about what we will accomplish in the years to come.
While we are optimistic about technology, it is true that spreadsheets and handwritten site logs are still all too common in the water industry. In addition, digitally advanced water utilities sometimes have a Frankenstein arrangement of systems, where each system works separately to solve a key problem but does not communicate effectively with each other. The consequences are high costs, wasted time, and sometimes even confusion about data accuracy because there are so many data sources.
We believe these challenges are all solvable by investing in a data-driven work culture. We encourage all water professionals to take advantage of the digitalization opportunities offered by AMP8. Now is the time
It’s time to jump on the technology bandwagon and develop an analytical mindset. Don’t wait for the next train – it won’t be here for another five years.
Want to know more? Read the full report.
