It’s common knowledge that water utilities are looking to employ new and transformative solutions as they strive to deliver that most precious resource – water. As we face pressure from a multitude of factors including climate change, ageing infrastructure and population growth, we need to move beyond considering whether to implement new solutions and instead focus on the fast and thorough adoption of new ways of working.
With this in mind, myself and colleagues from the SWAN Forum, Vitens, Karmous-Edwards Consulting, Complex Change, AECOM and Jacobs wanted to create a guide designed for smart water professionals, which would look further than your typical technical journey and instead explore how water utilities can create the desire for true transformation within their organisation. This was no small undertaking, and required significant collaboration from the partners mentioned above.
We wanted to enable those within the smart water community to effectively demonstrate the full range of benefits that a digital transformation can deliver; whether that be in customer service, asset optimisation, environmental or community benefits. It was imperative that alongside this we detail the change management required to enable this step change in digital capability, and so we have spent more than two years developing a first of its kind guide – the Digital Twin Values Guide.
The SWAN Digital Twin, Outcomes and Applications working group has brought together minds from across the industry who have aimed not just to address the current challenges we are facing, but to look ahead at the innovations and transformations of the future. I’m proud to have been a part of this endeavour to drive the sector towards a resilient and intelligent future, and would encourage any smart water professionals to take a look at the guide, which you can access here.
Andy Smith, Head of Smart Water at Anglian Water Services
