Ensuring a Safe, Smart future for the water industry

This article was guest written by Anglian Water, creators of the Safe Smart Systems project, awarded funding in Water Breakthrough Challenge 1.

Although water is an essential resource, its supply isn’t infinite. Facing a growing population and rising temperatures across the globe, the water industry is currently dealing with a new set of challenges. As the pressure increases on UK’s water network, now is the time to look closely at our operations and ensure they are fit for future purpose.

Innovation will play an important role in allowing us to think outside of the box and introduce new ways of operating to the water industry. Safe Smart Systems is a project that aims to build a scalable and adoptable safe smart system within the Ely and Newmarket area. Led by Anglian Water, who have engaged Jacobs as lead delivery partner, Safe Smart Systems is a collaborative project, with more than 20 contributing partners, combining their skills, knowledge and experience from within the water industry and beyond.

Using smart technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, we will develop a system that will accelerate efforts to achieve our future vision for an automated, connected system that delivers a clean, sustainable supply of water for future generations. Our system will build on data led decision making, improving the operational performance within the bounded region of Ely and Newmarket. We will be able to predict disruptive events before they happen, providing the capabilities for teams to move from a reactive to proactive way of working. By improving operational resilience through a systems-based approach, the water industry will ultimately be able to offer a better service to customers, while continuing to deliver enhanced environmental benefits.

While the initial Safe Smart Systems project may be focused in the demonstration area of Ely and Newmarket, we have set our eyes on informing the road map for the long-term digital transformation of water operations within Anglian Water and beyond. As we move into a new phase of the project, we reflect on our key learnings so far.

Collaboration is key

We can’t deliver work of this scale alone, which is why we’re collaborating with UK and worldwide water utilities, globally recognised innovators in digital transformation and leading academics.

To scale this project, we must design with the future in mind, mature capabilities and transform cultures to successfully operate automated solutions. To do so, we will produce an industry playbook to help other organisations develop a safe smart system and implement the organisational change required for its success. We want to ensure the benefits can be scaled across entire businesses, which is why we need the help of our partners. By working with our partners, we can access a diversity of expertise and skills. We are already realising the value in this approach, with learning being shared and utilised across our water company partners.

Three ingredients of success

For this project to be successful, we need to prioritise three interrelated elements, a decision engine, the operational environment and next generation infrastructure.

The self-healing solution that will make system-based decisions to improve operational performance is what we describe as our AI Decision Engine. Based on data, it will identify and predict probable issues on the network, learn the consequence of failure (relating to performance, customer and the environment) and trigger a response to achieve optimum operation. As trust in the data and technology increases over time, this response will become increasingly automated.

For our decision engine to work, we need to examine the operational environment. We must be careful of not being constrained by current operating models and organisational structures and instead, explore what it could look like in the future. We must create an adaptive team and environment where people have greater visibility of system performance, understand the value of virtual assets and have confidence in the data. We need to operate in a way where we can make informed, complex decisions based on data and insight. We recognise that changing business processes and cultures takes time and focus however

While a big part of our focus is digital, we also need to look at next generation infrastructure. In the future, our infrastructure will have a dependency on data. It needs to be connected and adaptive and be safe from possible cyber-attacks. We will need operators to be familiar with the technologically advanced infrastructure and be connected to the live system and data.

Our learnings have been exponential so far in this project, but one thing is clear, for these three key elements to align, we must influence the culture of the business to ensure this change is sustainable long term.

Paving the way for further innovation

Innovation can be slow but having access to the Ofwat Innovation Fund, has given us the time, space and freedom needed, to develop and implement a smart system that could transform the water industry.   By having access to ring-fenced and committed resources, we have been able to onboard contributors that bring a diversity of thought and different skills to the project, that are not traditionally found within the water industry. Instead of solutions looking for problems, the fund has allowed us to be outcome driven. With the time to properly explore the problems, define requirements and understand future impacts we can better implement solutions that maximise value.

Our hope for Safe Smart Systems is to create a legacy that could benefit not just the water industry but other business across the UK and beyond. Hopefully, in seeing the opportunity this funding has presented our project, further experts within the water sector will come forward with new and innovative projects to secure a safe and sustainable future for this vital industry.

Anglian Water and the Safe Smart Systems partnership won the Innovation Award at the Utility Week Awards 2023, recognised for transforming the water sector through the creation of an automated, connected utility system for future generations.

Learn more about Safe Smart Systems