Increasing Digital Resiliency Through Extended Reality

In the spring of 2020, as the country shuttered its schools and businesses, water and wastewater utilities across the nation were forced to invoke their Emergency Response Plans and Continuity of Operations Plans to ensure our nation's critical infrastructure remained operational. Granted, these plans were successful and solidified the value of resiliency planning, however they also revealed a significant gap with respect to digital resiliency planning. Digital resilience relies upon enlisting technology planning and emerging digital solutions to ensure business continuity and safeguard operations. Although the traditional resiliency planning successfully ensured continued operations, most utilities were not adequately prepared for the digital requirements to send non-essential staff home to work. Telecommuting infrastructure (networks, mobile devices, etc.) was generally lacking for most utilities, and while traditional telecommuting tools are not practical for the Operations & Maintenance staff, proper digital resiliency planning can ensure sustainable and safe operation for all staff, now and well beyond COVID. Although most frontline workers at treatment facilities have to be on-site to maintain and operate critical infrastructure, Operators and Maintenance staff can still leverage leading-edge tools, such as Augmented or Mixed Reality (A/MR) and knowledge management systems, to safeguard quality operations and their own personal safety. This new breed of personal and portable computing technologies enables workers to view and interact with digital information in a handsfree manner. Using wearable devices, the user is delivered a first-person perspective of virtual information, such as text and images, with the surrounding physical environment to receive context-specific data and knowledge. This ultimately provides frontline workers with a first-person perspective of all relevant resources, including manuals, operating procedures, and even video, right at their fingertips. This presentation will focus on strengthening digital resiliency through the use of A/MR, which yields numerous benefits to the utility industry, including emergency response and quality performance; institutional knowledge capture and transfer; empowering the next generation of utility experts; and remote viewing, communication, and support. The presentation will also present a case study with the City of Ft. Myers that owns and operates two Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facilities (AWWTF). To determine the efficiency of knowledge transfer using an A/MR platform, the City of Ft. Myers wastewater staff and CDM Smith conducted a research and development (R&D) project aimed at rapidly deploying a solution for the city to evaluate the success and benefits of an A/MR Knowledge Management system to capture unique, context-specific knowledge and make it readily available to others via Microsoft HoloLens. Enhancing Emergency Response A/MR provides facility operators with a solution that promotes consistency and quality operations, even amidst the threat of staff shortages. With A/MR powered knowledge management solutions, frontline users can use technology to instantly see a sequence of steps to resolve an issue, directly in context of the specific asset or process in need of attention. There is no need to leave the equipment to look up documentation, and the user can remain hands-free to operate the equipment while viewing the instructions. Not only is this type of solution useful in helping a utility respond during an emergency, but it is also useful during normal operating conditions. Content delivered via A/MR can also be used to practice emergency response procedures. Leading platforms integrate into existing plant systems, such as SCADA and CMMS, to further enhance the information that can be visually delivered to the user. A/MR also enables seasoned operators and technicians to train new generations of operators and technicians without physically being together. Facility operators can patch-in other experts or staff through remote A/MR collaboration offerings to troubleshoot a problem, or to learn/watch a process. These solutions promote real-time, two-way collaboration and annotation of field captured images, allowing up to 20 participants to simultaneously view real-world conditions while remaining physically distanced. In this critical coronavirus era, delivering frontline workers with virtual workforce capabilities combats their risk of exposure, providing them with a contactless way to transfer pivotal institutional knowledge. Institutional Knowledge Capture and Transfer The water utility industry across the U.S. is challenged with the convergence of aging infrastructure, retirement of long-term senior staff, and increasing regulations, costs, and demands. As older, experienced staff are retiring, they take with them valuable, often undocumented institutional knowledge about key processes, infrastructure, and equipment, forcing the utility to typically operate in a reactive or emergency-response state. A reactive environment generally results in higher operating expenses, below average performance of the facility, and could potentially lead to regulatory violations and customer complaints. Subsequently, the utility shifts further and further into a reactive/emergency-response state, and time-consuming activities such as documentation and training of incoming new hires falls lower on the priority list. Utilities must find a way to balance the demands placed on their people, infrastructure, and finances in the normal course of business. Evaluation O&M practices are an effective way to recognize problem areas and identify strategies needed to bring the organization back into balance and provide sustainability to the utility. Developing standard operating procedures (SOP) and implementing them with A/MR can ensure that new staff can apply and retain knowledge from the experts. The intent of risk management is to make more informed and better decisions to address existing or potential risks to agency objectives, while understanding the likely outcomes and results of the actions. This is not a one-time activity; it is an ongoing, continuous process of monitoring and managing all kinds of risks. In broadly considering risk to human capital in succession planning, leadership must explore the following question with respect to their workforce: Which functions and job skills are critical to sustained organizational performance? 1. How could this work function fail to be performed? 2. What would cause such a failure? 3. What is the likelihood of non-performance of this function in our system? 4. What does it cost to purchase that skill set on the open market or build it internally (time and resources)? 5. Can I use A/MR technology to prevent the failure? 6. What are the consequences of failure to act on this potential? Assess the profile of your workforce to understand your human capital risks and consider adopting A/MR to ensure long-term knowledge retention to sustain your infrastructure, as well as the overall production and mission of the utility. Empowering the Next Generation of Utility Experts Bite-sized A/MR information is context-specific and right at the worker's fingertips-ideal for conveying technical information quickly with maximum retention. As new generations enter the workforce, these information delivery mechanisms are both preferred and expected. With A/MR tools, utility workers have access to notes and guidance that refer to details in the physical environment they are working in, accelerating institutional learning and helping level-set operational knowledge and skills. Using A/MR and knowledge management, the industry is equipped with a modern and equally robust capture and knowledge transfer solution that can meet the growing expectations of the younger generations entering the workforce