Accelerate Critical Decisions through Real-Time Data Storytelling Fed by Data from more than 13 Disparate Data Sources via a Modern Utility-wide Data Warehouse

A sluggish velocity in critical decisions by utility Boards, Councils, and Commissions presents a significant risk to addressing the complex challenges in the modern water/wastewater utility. Including real-time data storytelling as part of a comprehensive business intelligence program can significantly accelerate decision velocity. When coupled with a utility-wide modern data warehouse that feeds the business intelligence platform all of the utility's disparate data in real-time, full decision perspective can be continually delivered to the decision maker no matter how complex the decision nor how many data sources are necessary to tell the story. The AWWA 2021 State of the Water Industry report [1] paints a clear picture of the complex challenges before today's water/wastewater utility oversight bodies. Aging infrastructure, capital improvement financing, long-term water supply, emergency preparedness, watershed protection, aging workforces, regulatory compliance, groundwater management, emerging regulations, cybersecurity, cost recovery, talent attraction, asset management, customer relationships, water loss — the breadth and depth of management, finance, and technical decisions demanded of today's oversight bodies is daunting. This decision complexity is further complicated by the lack of requirements for technical expertise to serve on City Councils, County Commissions, and many Boards of Directors. In The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, Newell, Card, and Moran [2] present a description of the Hick-Hyman law [3,4] which postulates the time to make a decision is a factor of the number of choices and the probability of occurrence of each choice. For any single technical issue a utility oversight body considers, there are (practically) multiple potential choices and (theoretically) an infinite number of choices. When considering stratified decisions, such as a simultaneous (1) water rate increase with (2) an assessment of water affordability and (3) the reduction of aged infrastructure backlog, no decision-time model exists that dependably describes the resulting decision timeline. What every utility executive knows is that the time-to-decision on any one of these issues is significant. In October 2019, Opelika Utilities (Opelika, Alabama) presented their Board of Directors with a Capital Strategic Plan that assessed the requirements for full lifecycle replacement of all horizontal assets. The assessment identified a rate of replacement that would require a 5X multiplier when compared to the current annual capital asset replacement program. General Manager Dan Hilyer, PE, identified the following critical decisions that would need to be made within the first years: 1.Fund the immediate replacement of 100% of system water meters with an Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) system; 2.Establish the long-term disposition of the system's most aged water treatment plant; 3.Fund refurbishment of the aged plant or the design of a similar replacement plant; 4.Establish a timeline to fully fund all reserve accounts; 5.Establish a policy to minimize the long-term cost of money; 6.Establish an approach to resolve taste and odor; 7.Establish a capital improvement program sufficient to meet lifecycle replacement for 100% of horizontal assets; and 8.Establish an appropriate water rate to fund the other objectives. As of October 2020, the Opelika Board of Directors had accomplished only one of the necessary critical decisions, funding of the AMI project. Without an acceleration in the decision velocity, the necessary decisions to manage aged asset backlog, water affordability, aging workforce impacts, emerging contaminants, taste and odor, and many other challenges would be at risk. The very sustainability of Opelika Utilities hinged on the ability to accelerate all of the complex decisions before the Board of Directors. With a newly established enterprise data warehouse that delivers data across all of Opelika Utilities' data sources to the management team in real-time, the Opelika Utilities General Manager recognized an opportunity to establish a vision to accelerate Board of Directors decision velocity through the utilization of real-time data storytelling. The following regular Board decisions were identified to be included in the initial dashboard iteration: - Annual water rate setting; - Annual Capital Improvement Program; - 5-Year Capital Strategic Plan; - Annual analysis of water affordability; - Monthly management of the long-term cost of money; - Management of the aged infrastructure backlog; - Annual management of reserve financial accounts; - Annual budget setting; and - Long-term water rate and water affordability management. This approach to data storytelling requires the real-time delivery of data from the following data sources: 1.General Ledger; 2.Budget; 3.Geospatial; 4.SCADA; 5.Billing; 6.Metering; 7.Work Orders; 8.Service Requests; 9.Inventory; 10.Capital Assets; and 11. Human Resources. Opelika Utilities utilized this new capability and paired it with the following principles of dashboard design: 1. Provide the Board of Directors with the decision narrative; 2. Create perspective of importance for each decision; 3.Provide clarity of current state and desired objectives; 4.Demonstrate connectivity of decision points; 5.Provide feedback for all decision points; 6.Demonstrate consequences of decisions and present alternatives; and 7.Accomplish all objectives in real time. The resulting dashboard for the Opelika Utilities Board of Directors is providing a transformative experience in decision-making. Data storytelling provides the Board of Directors with a clear narrative and metrics to reduce long-term water rates, increase affordability, have confidence in the capacity of the water system, and minimize the short-term cost of borrowing money. The approach to data storytelling even gave the Board enough confidence to adopt a real-time automated variable water rate that equitably recovers the true cost of both water production and water service. The Opelika Utilities Board of Directors now makes multiple critical decisions each month — without hesitation — with full confidence and clear perspective. This technical presentation will tour through several of the data story dashboards used by Opelika Utilities, provide a brief overview of the business intelligence delivery platform that spans all utility data sources, and discuss the specific benefits realized by each story dashboard.