Water Efficiency July/August 2009 : Page 49
Figure 1. Collecting network information effectively in real time requires devices that can operate at low-power and with wireless communications. Figure 2. In order to meet the challenges of managing field work, water companies need to ensure the field force can receive work orders and view key information remotely using wireless communications technology. timely manner in order to rectify un- derlying causes • To learn from potential and real situ- ations so as to improve the ability to identify potential issues For example, the objective of mini- mizing the number of incidents of sewer flooding and overall to reduce the number of properties at risk of sewer flooding, a water company must be able to: • Collect real-time sewer network in- formation such as level and flow • Relate this real-time information to a network model or other heuristic information, in order to determine points in the network that require ur- gent remedial work • Coordinate field teams to rectify the work in the required timescale and identify that the work is complete and the issue is resolved • Have a high-level view of their achievement of regulatory compliance The collection of real-time network data in a cost-effective manner may often require the use of battery-powered devices with wireless (usually GSM) communica- tions, as otherwise it is either too expen- sive or impractical (for instance, to install w w w.w a t er efficienc y .net mains power and communications links), or inadequate (for instance, logging data locally and collecting it manually will not provide true real-time status). Most water companies will have a hy- draulic model of their clean and wastewa- ter networks. Real-time information can be applied to this model, in order to identify areas where there are potential issues. Tra- ditionally this is an offline process, taking place periodically, with intervals anywhere between four hours and one month. In order to meet the challenges laid down by the water regulators, methods are required that can provide reliable information in real time or near real time. Once potential problems are identi- fied, the water company has another issue, to ensure that field teams are issued with appropriate work instructions and tasked with completing work in a timescale neces- sary to avoid an incident. Water companies already face a real challenge to ensure all maintenance and remedial work is planned and completed effectively. Work Manage- ment Systems, together with automatic Field Force Scheduling and Optimization Systems are widely available and com- monly used by water companies to manage their field operations. Finally, the task of monitoring regula- tory compliance is a significant one, con- suming large amounts of time and effort for a typical water company. The provision of information in a “management dash- board” style is becoming increasingly com- mon. The aim is to provide the Key Per- formance Indicators (KPIs) that managers need to monitor in an easy-to-understand form so that the current situation is clearly understood and important decisions can be made quickly. Pattern Matching to Identify Situations The use of pattern matching is not new and has been successfully applied using signal and image processing to a very wide range of scenarios, such as to speech recognition (recognizing words based on patterns in speech signals), automated manufacturing (detecting faults in manu- factured product by comparing an image of a good unit with those being made and highlighting differences), and submarine detection (detecting types of submarine from the specific type of noise given off by their different engines). WATER EFFICIENCY 49
Publication List
