Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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14 | AUGUST 2018 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk The talk: Events join us here in the North East to focus on innovation and to help us make the world a better place, and that's been just fantas- tic. I'm very excited about the results and can't wait to see what comes out of the festival. Last year we saw some amazing ideas come to life – like the moss tree in Newcastle – but I'm confident having seen what the sprints have come up with this year that we're going to change the game completely." One improvement on the event from last year was the greater presence and involvement of digital experts who are skilled in app development. These ex- perts, who work for local tech companies, were brought in for the latter half of the week in order to bring people's ideas to life and create clickable prototypes. "We found last year that when the sprints got to Wednesday or Thursday, people said, 'Right, we know what we want to do, we want to build an app that does this', and people looked round the room and found that nobody had the skills to do that," he said. "So this year we put in place what we called the developer garage – we have developers who are embedded in the sprint tents, developing apps that really Data hack outcomes The festival saw two 'data hacks' (on the subjects of leakage and sewer flooding) in which real data from Northumbrian's operations was picked over and analysed by experts for insights and the formation of new analytical tools. Outcomes included: 1 A dashboard interface for aggregating and presenting key data to leakage technicians before they begin a survey. This even included the optimum place for the technicians to park their van in order to maximise the efficiency of their leakage survey 2 Predictive modelling – using AI and machine learning, this tool helps to predict where and when bursts will happen. A good tool for short-term forecasting and resource allocation 3 Estimation of night use consumption vs actual leakage: the hack team proposed a new approach to the traditional model used by Northumbrian which may be more effective 4 Developing a sewer blockage prediction tool, and a full property protection review, which includes insight into how a change in occupier of a house can lead to debris in sewers causing blockages 5 'Moata' platform – a data visulisation platform with real-time decision- making capabilities Toilet technology promises intelligent network approach One of the impressive solutions to have emerged from the innovation sprints at Northumbrian's festival was the 'Barnacle', a prototype piece of sensing technology that is fitted in customer toilets in order to give water companies intelligence about how the water network is performing and detect localised leaks. The idea emerged from the 'Smart objectives' sprint which Northumbrian Water held at the festival in partnership with CGI. The Barnacle is a plastic tube fitted to the toilet cistern that senses the temperature and the turbidity of the water supplied, and also has an acoustic sensor that can detect how long the toilet is taking to fill. The sprint team said that the householders could be incentivised to have the kit fitted by the promise of reductions on their water bill. The equipment would be relatively cheap to produce, and could be fitted to hundreds of households in a local community. When a clear change from the norm occurred – such as a surge in turbidity or a drop in water pressure indicated by a slow time to fill – in several toilets at once then this would trigger an alarm that could be represented on the water company's GIS system. If a large number of Barnacles were deployed then the burst, leak or other network incident would be easy to narrow down to a particular location. The Barnacle could also be linked to an app on the customer's phone or device, which would alert the householder to any issue detected. If the issue is something that the water company knows about and is dealing with, this will give information and reassurance to the customer. On the other hand, if the problem is limited to one customer's property, then the app could advise the householder to call a plumber and provide contact details. The CGI team said that the solution was "not so much crowdsourcing as bogsourcing". The winning idea – which was complete with a prototype and dummy version of the app – is one of the outcomes that will now be considered for implementation by Northumbrian. bring those ideas off the page." Another aspect of the event that was taken to a new level was the involvement of young people. Younger children were engaged in a STEM workshop looking at how to promote science, technology en- gineering and maths careers; there was a 'teenager sprint' looking at how to reduce the impact of single-use plastics; and university students were heavily involved through partnerships on two of the sprints with Newcastle and Durham universities. The festival was also an important moti- vational and engagement tool for North- umbrian's workforce. An 'Invest Quest' challenge was held specifically for the company's employees to pitch ideas to top management in a 'Dragon's Den' format. Most importantly, many of the ideas generated at the event are taken forward by Northumbrian Water. Last year's In- novation Festival resulted in 34 individual projects being taken up by the firm; of these, 27 are still going, and several are already yielding or promising to produce business benefits. With this year's festival being double the size, the flow of ideas and innovation from the 2018 incarnation should be even larger. With an emphasis on wellbeing, the festival also offered a chance to relax The 'Barnacle' was created in the smart technology sprint with CGI