Digitisation promises enhanced operational efficiency, but embracing innovation is not without risk – here’s how the water sector can integrate new technologies with ease.
Water and wastewater asset owners are grappling with a host of challenges, including ageing infrastructure, regulatory pressures, climate uncertainties and talent shortages. These hurdles make maintaining service levels and system performance increasingly difficult.
However, there’s a silver lining: the growing influx of data from plants and networks. When harnessed effectively, this data can revolutionise operations and maintenance (O&M) processes through digital transformation.
Despite its potential, digital transformation is often misunderstood or perceived as overly complex. This article aims to demystify the process and demon
strate how water and wastewater asset owners can integrate digital tools into their daily operations with ease.
By following five simple steps – information capture, digital collaboration, data analytics, system optimisation, and end-to-end automation – asset owners can unlock tangible benefits such as more resilient systems, efficient operations, and proactive planning.
Step 1 – information capture
Water and wastewater systems generate vast amounts of data, from flow rates to equipment status updates. Unfortunately, much of this data remains siloed in systems like SCADA, CMMS, GIS and other asset registries.
By adopting a cloud-based environment, asset owners can centralise and organise this valuable information, making it accessible and actionable.
Real-time monitoring
When these systems are integrated with SCADA and IoT sensors, raw data is automatically monitored for anomalies like pressure drops or equipment malfunctions, enabling earlier intervention.
Comprehensive reporting
Automated systems ensure compliance management and timely submission of required reports.
Digital twin configuration
These systems create dynamic digital models of networks or plants to validate decisions and support incident responses.
Workflow templating
This enables asset owners to turn staff knowledge into organisational best practices with custom workflow templates, ensuring resilience against expertise loss due to staff turnover.
For maintenance teams, a centralised asset registry eliminates the need for manual spreadsheets, enabling trend identification and informed planning. Efficient inspection reviews and user-friendly data uploads streamline processes, while cloud-based storage removes IT infrastructure complexities.
Step 2 – digital collaboration
Cloud-based solutions provide a centralised space for data visualisation and sharing, replacing scattered spreadsheets with user-friendly dashboards. This enhanced communication fosters better coordination and efficiency among operators, asset managers, and field engineers.
Intuitive digital workspaces
With cloud-based solutions, teams can visualise, update, and share asset information, measuring operational data against KPIs in customised visualisations.
Move beyond spreadsheets
Automated tools can replace manual data entry, offering a single, trusted source for maps, schematics and compliance reports.
Faster response times
These solutions offer near real-time data sharing across roles and sites, which in turn enables proactive issue management.
For maintenance teams, centralised asset data allows quick access to historical inspection results, associated footage, and defect codes. GIS visualisation integrates geospatial context, helping teams map network risks and prioritise interventions. Clear workflows and accurate condition data further streamline inspection processes and inform risk models.
Step 3 – data analytics
Data analytics is the cornerstone of digital transformation, extracting valuable insights from cleaned asset data to uncover patterns and trends. These insights enable strategic decision-making, allowing asset owners to plan proactively, respond to incidents and mitigate risks.
Improve analytic depth
In-app contextual help and preset functions unlock deeper insights, measuring metrics like revenue water loss and energy use.
Model with the latest data
Integration with Autodesk modelling software allows real-time updates and calibration of hydraulic models, validated against actual system performance.
Analytics template library
Domain experts can create templates to improve service delivery, maximise resources, and manage incidents efficiently.
Upskill your workforce
Templates simplify analytics for junior engineers, reducing reliance on advanced IT support and streamlining onboarding.
Maintenance teams benefit from reliable asset data to build decision trees, enabling quick queries on asset risks and rehabilitation costs. AI-powered analysis automates defect identification in pipe footage, speeding up condition assessments and enhancing risk mitigation strategies.
Step 4 – system optimisation
Insights from data analytics pave the way for energy, cost and labour optimisations across networks and plants. Over time, these insights form a repository of knowledge that aids management, trains new staff and improves efficiency.
Identify trends and recommend actions
Performance data, geospatial data, and climate forecasting can be used to anticipate equipment failures and seasonal changes.
Increase labour efficiency
Remote monitoring and system controls reduce reliance on onsite personnel, freeing up time for higher-value tasks.
Set and track goals
Insights from data analytics can be used to establish benchmarks and track system status to create realistic goals for risk management, customer concerns and compliance reporting.
Proactive incident management
Data insights can be used to simulate scenarios to prepare for emergencies, create plans and meet compliance requirements.
For maintenance teams, streamlined workflows simplify pipe inspections, while decision trees help justify capital planning decisions. A clear view of asset priorities enables optimised spending and backlog clearance.
Step 5 – end-to-end automation
When data is centralised and analysed in one place, it becomes a single source of truth, reducing errors and duplicated efforts. Automation accelerates tasks that traditionally add delays, such as manual data exchange and duplicate work forms.
Save time on spreadsheet work
Automated tools reduce laborious spreadsheet management, saving hours in the process.
Autogenerate reports
Compliance and management reports can be automatically generated and distributed, incorporating up-to-date data and KPIs.
Apply automated templates
Operator best practices can be captured in ready-to-run templates, automating treatment plant and network processes.
Maintenance teams can automate pipe condition assessments using AI-powered systems, covering more of the network while saving on labour costs. Integration with Esri ArcGIS Online ensures risk analysis decision trees and condition data are updated automatically, enabling stakeholders to visualise CCTV data with ease.
Start your digital transformation journey
Autodesk offers a suite of cloud-based solutions to help water and wastewater asset owners embrace digital transformation:
- Info360 Insight – a digital twin solution for operational analytics, incident management, and compliance reporting. It unifies network data for data-driven decisions and automated reporting.
- Info360 Plant – a configurable platform for managing water and wastewater treatment plant performance. It enhances collaboration and captures operational best practices into automated workflows.
- Info360 Asset – a user-friendly solution for storing and analysing asset condition and risk data. It provides a foundation for repeatable rehabilitation decisions and optimal CapEx allocation.
Digital transformation is no longer a distant goal – it’s a necessity for water and wastewater asset owners. With rising costs, increasing complexity, and shrinking talent pools, digital tools offer a way to regain control and uncover new efficiencies.
By following the five steps outlined above, asset owners can simplify their digital transformation journey and unlock the full potential of their data.
The greatest risk lies in doing nothing. With the tools available today, the path to more resilient systems, efficient operations and proactive planning is clearer than ever. Start your journey now and discover new horizons in O&M efficiency.
For more information, visit, autodesk.com/au/industry/water
Image: THINK b/stock.adobe.com.au
