Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JULY 2017 | 9 thread amongst the UK pump industry and its front-line supply chain. It is vital that we fight to preserve beneficial laws, eradicate other bureaucratic nonsense, and forge strong apprenticeship schemes. Right now – at the very early stages - BPMA is working for the good of the UK pump industry through member engagement. The aim of the BPMA is to construct an agenda of "go" and "no- go" aspects of forthcoming legislation, while demanding the re-balancing of skills, and ultimately voicing our unified position loudly with all appropriate governmental bodies. Not many pump companies will escape some form of change to their business model a‚er Brexit has finally matured. If you have unanswered questions about future legislation, and would like to be included within the BPMA escalation discussions, you are encouraged to engage with the BPMA in the not-too-distant future. Recently, the BPMA has been collecting thoughts and prescriptions from its membership through a simple questionnaire; non-members who understand that this subject will affect their company and/or distributor network are welcome to contact Steve Schofield (Director of the BPMA) at s.schofield@bpma.org.uk. By doing this, we can all work together to guard against threats and identify opportunities for the collective good of the pump sector. The Talk: opinion Chris Jones R&D ManageR noRThUMbRian WaTeR networks make the world go round P eople, families, communities, media, transport, communications, information, health, education, finance, commerce, industry and, of course, utilities – they are all about networks. Service providers need to understand how effective their networks are and what quality of service they are delivering. Historic performance information is useful in identifying long- term deterioration and risk of service failure and for designing remedies. However, water companies increasingly aspire to use network information to understand what is happening now, to deliver insights into likely service levels over the next few hours and to drive real- time interventions to deliver great service in the most efficient way. Given that we have been talking about real-time data and 'smart' water networks for at least the last decade, why does sensing for networks still feel novel compared to the extent of monitoring across our processes and assets? There have been various barriers preventing the uptake of sensing for water networks, but recent developments are helping to overcome some of these: Barrier no 1: the availability of instruments to deliver real-time information at an affordable cost of ownership. We have driven instrument manufacturers to replicate lab-quality measurement in the field and to deliver high volumes of data across energy- demanding communications platforms. A number of factors are set to help resolve these tensions: battery technology continues to reduce the size and cost of energy storage, while increasing capacity and communications technology offers alternatives such as low power radio networks. More significantly, we are realising that relative trends in service quality offer valuable insights and that maybe lab-quality measurement is not always required. Barrier no 2: The capability of systems to store, manage and analyse vast quantities of data and to deliver actionable insights in real time. The advance in computing technology is clear for all to see: 'cloud' storage and processing able to securely handle vast quantities of data, internet of things enabling device to device communication, machine learning offering automatic recognition of patterns and anomalies, visualisation tools delivering information effectively to users, automated network control systems delivering cost and quality benefits. Barrier no 3: The unclear business case for network scale monitoring. To some extent, progress in delivering affordable sensors and data processing solutions will close the cost-benefit gap. However, genuine barriers remain: we are dealing with extensive legacy infrastructure that is difficult to access, meaning that retrofitting sensors is not trivial. Physical intervention options are constrained by resource availability and practicalities; if real-time action is not possible then the value of real-time information reduces. At Sensing in Water this year, organised by the Sensors in Water Interest Group (SWIG) on September 27-28th at Nottingham Belfry, we will discuss these issues and others in the session on sensors for networks and infrastructure. See www.swig.org.uk for further details. "Water companies increasingly aspire to use network information to understand what is happening now, to deliver insights into likely service levels over the next few hours and to drive real-time interventions to deliver great service in the most efficient way." "The aim of the bPMa is to construct an agenda of "go" and "no-go" aspects of forthcoming legislation, while demanding the re-balancing of skills, and ultimately voicing our unified position loudly with all appropriate governmental bodies."

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