As water is increasingly being recognized as a high-value commodity, aging assets present a major threat to organizations that treat and deliver it. Improving asset performance is one of the most effective strategies water and wastewater plants and networks can implement to reduce costs and protect quality. Digital transformation enables asset performance management by automating information, operations, and communications technology. Collecting operational data from connected assets such as pumps and sharing it with real-time decision support
applications in the cloud or on premises – is how digitalization improves asset performance. This document examines the role of digitalization from four perspectives: asset performance, pumping performance, workforce empowerment, and system integration.
Chapter I provides an overview of asset performance improvement and how digitalization is making decades of asset performance management advancements feasible for improving performance of water and wastewater assets. It provides a three-part program for improving both the tactical and strategic performance of water industry assets. Chapter II focuses on improving performance of pumping assets, arguably the most critical and vulnerable asset in the industry, and Chapter III addresses how digitalization can improve workforce performance, highlighting augmented reality as an example of a technology that is just beginning to take hold in the water industry.
System integrators will play a significant role in digitalization of the water industry and Chapter IV provides a glimpse of digital transformation from the perspective of a system integrator with extensive experience in serving the water and wastewater industry