Water sector follows the digitalization trend

The pro­vi­sion of afford­able drink­ing water in top qual­i­ty is one of the most impor­tant tasks of the water sec­tor. To be able to do that, the indus­try needs con­tin­u­ous inno­va­tions in order to main­tain the high stan­dards for the future. The lat­est devel­op­ments in the field of drink­ing water prepa­ra­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion will be on show at the upcom­ing trade fair IFAT. The ‘World´s Lead­ing Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Waste and Raw Mate­ri­als Man­age­ment’, takes place at the Messe München exhi­bi­tion cen­ter in Munich from May 14 to 18, 2018. Sil­via Fritsch­er, Exhi­bi­tion Direc­tor of IFAT at the trade-fair com­pa­ny, has observed that for some years now more and more of the inno­va­tions pre­sent­ed at IFAT are to do with the key top­ics of dig­i­tal­iza­tion, automa­tion and Water 4.0. This is a trend that will fur­ther strength­en in 2018.
“The great­est progress in dig­i­tal­iza­tion in the drink­ing water sec­tor is seen cur­rent­ly in the areas of pump con­trols, mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy and drink­ing water analy­sis,” says Julia Braune, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the Ger­man Water Part­ner­ship (GWP), an indus­try and research net­work. She con­tin­ues: “While dig­i­tal inte­gra­tion of pump con­trols is already well advanced, there is still much poten­tial in the con­nect­ing up of sys­tem com­po­nents using sen­sors, for exam­ple for analy­sis. Ever bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the var­i­ous parts of the water pro­duc­tion process – for exam­ple, springs, water­works and the drink­ing water net­work – can both enhance the secu­ri­ty of the sup­ply and also opti­mize ener­gy and resource efficiency.”

Opportunities from a “digital twin”

Even more exten­sive scope for dig­i­tal­iza­tion lies in set­ting up a “dig­i­tal twin”. This is a data mod­el which depicts a machine, a sys­tem or even a com­plex infra­struc­ture with all its infor­ma­tion and inter­de­pen­den­cies. Chris­t­ian Ziemer, Siemens AG and Head of the GWP Work­ing Group Water 4.0, sets out one pos­si­ble appli­ca­tion in drink­ing water and waste water: “With a dig­i­tal twin we can do real-life sim­u­la­tions, com­plete­ly with­out risk, to test var­i­ous approach­es and opti­mize them.”

Better identification of customer needs

The impor­tance of dig­i­tal change has been rec­og­nized in the field of munic­i­pal water sup­plies – that was a clear find­ing in a sur­vey of its mem­bers con­duct­ed by the Ver­band Kom­mu­naler Unternehmen (VKU – the Ger­man asso­ci­a­tion of pub­lic util­i­ty com­pa­nies): More than two thirds of the com­pa­nies rat­ed dig­i­tal­iza­tion as of high or very high rel­e­vance. And already one in two com­pa­nies are either plan­ning or imple­ment­ing a dig­i­tal­iza­tion strat­e­gy. “Dig­i­tal­iza­tion under­lines the ben­e­fit to cus­tomers and cit­i­zens as a cen­tral impe­tus for change,” points out Michael Beck­ere­it, Pres­i­dent of the VKU. He adds: “Analy­sis of large vol­umes of data means we can rec­og­nize more eas­i­ly what the cus­tomers need and bet­ter under­stand the process­es. This in turn forms a good basis for devel­op­ing new and even more suit­able prod­ucts and strategies.”

‘Maturity Model Water Supply 4.0’ in development

In order to give sup­port to com­pa­nies in the water sup­ply sec­tor on dig­i­tal­iza­tion, the Deutsch­er Vere­in des Gas- und Wasser­fach­es (DVGW – Ger­man Asso­ci­a­tion for Gas and Water) com­mis­sioned in autumn the devel­op­ment of a ‘Matu­ri­ty Mod­el Water Sup­ply 4.0’. “We hope that this mod­el will give us a valid overview of the cur­rent prac­tices in dig­i­tal­iza­tion in the water sec­tor. Ide­al­ly we will be able to derive improve­ment mea­sures from this and then intro­duce them in a sen­si­ble sequence,” explains Dr. Dirk Waider, Vice Pres­i­dent Water at the DVGW.