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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Abstract
WEFTEC, the largest event of its kind in North America, offers water quality professionals the best in water quality education and training. With almost 200 technical sessions, workshops, mobile sessions, local facility tours and 1,000+ exhibitors, it is the premier water conference! The WEFTEC technical program is selected through a rigorous, peer-review process, ensuring that attendees experience the highest-quality education. WEFTEC speakers are experts and innovators, leading the way in water quality. The following paper was presented at WEFTEC 2019.
WEFTEC, the largest event of its kind in North America, offers water quality professionals the best in water quality education and training. With almost 200 technical sessions, workshops, mobile sessions, local facility tours and 1,000+ exhibitors, it is the premier water conference! The WEFTEC technical program is selected through a rigorous, peer-review process, ensuring that attendees experience the highest-quality education. WEFTEC speakers are experts and innovators, leading the way in water quality. The following paper was presented at WEFTEC 2019.
Author(s)
K. Stively J. Theerman
SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation
Subject319 Utility Management: Seeing (and Using) the Right Information Through the Forest of Systems and Data
Document typeConference Paper
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Print publication date Sep, 2019
ISSN1938-6478
DOI10.2175/193864718825157084
Volume / Issue
Content sourceWEFTEC
Copyright2019
Word count5,218
Subject keywordsAsset ManagementUtility Management
Associated keywords:Modeling, GIS, Computer Applications, Instrumentation, and AutomationUtility Management, Leadership, and EMS

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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
ABSTRACT
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Utility leaders find themselves caught in a paradox of working within a society that increasingly achieves benefits through smart technologies and the reality that their organizations remain unable to capitalize on large utility data storage across systems often referred to as “dark data.” Bringing this dark data into the light and leveraging past and future investments in digital...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count230
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
KEYWORDS
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Internet of Things (IoT), SCADA, business intelligence, effective utility management, emerging technology, smart utility, digital utility, technology platform, big data, industrial internet of things (IIoT)
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count61
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
INTRODUCTION
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
The American Water Works Association (AWWA) published a 2008 document titled “Effective Utility Management: A Primer for Water and Wastewater Utilities,” which was updated in 2017. The primer discussed the keys to unlock the potential of utilities to protect public health and the environment in the 21st century. The document was designed to help water and wastewater utility managers...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count230
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
CHALLENGES
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Today’s utilities are challenged by increasing customer expectations, the need to continuously improve efficiency, loss of institutional knowledge, and managing an aging and complex infrastructure. While the industry continues to improve, success in leveraging technology for better decision making has proven elusive. Managers want to believe technology holds the promise of solving problems...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count356
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
IMPLEMENTING A SMART UTILITY
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Answering the questions above is possible by taking a phased approach customized to the utility’s vision and digital technology requirements to allow for building confidence in smart utility solutions. A phased approach allows the utility to explore the possibilities of smart solutions on specific use cases testing their efficacy in a practical manner. Phase 1 is to improve the foundational...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count392
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
WHAT IS A SMART UTILITY?
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Smart utility—a dynamic and digital approach to utility management—is helping utilities overcome roadblocks such as poor data quality or digital silos by connecting information systems and departments together to leverage the data and deliver real-time analytic solutions. Using collected data will force changes in the way the instruments, sensors, and other sources of data are...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count1,409
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
BENEFITS OF A SMART UTILITY
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
The smart utility approach has several potential benefits that should be considered by utilities including operational cost savings, improved customer service, water conservation, and faster response times. Rather than having to go to numerous places to locate information, staff can quickly and easily access the information they need from a single interface to make informed decisions. Smart...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count446
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
USE CASE EXAMPLES
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
The following are examples of use cases for leak detection, line breaks, and well failure prediction for the water industry and characterization and proper billing of industrial dischargers in the wastewater industry.
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count2,752
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
SUMMARY
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
Historically, success in the water industry has relied upon conservative management and maintaining a low tolerance for risk. However, the industry has recognized that risk avoidance is not necessarily the best path for success. The path to smart utility starts by defining a vision that aligns a utility’s digital technology with its business objectives. Even if utilities stop there, they...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count224
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Description: Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Effective Utility Management in a Digital World
We would like to acknowledge the contributions and support in writing this paper from John Abrera, PE of Brown and Caldwell with his work on industrial waste discharge monitoring for the City of Memphis, Tasha King-Davis, PE of the City of Memphis to allow the use of their project as an example use case, and Michael Karl of Brown and Caldwell for his work on water distribution leak detection and...
PublisherWater Environment Federation
Copyright2019
Word count168
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Effective Utility Management in a Digital World