1. SWANonomics
The unexpected economics of Smart Water Networks
Haggai Scolnicov
Chief Technology Officer, TaKaDu
May 2012

2. TaKaDu in one slide
Sensor data Event detection Analyst action Field repairs
• 12 utilities
• Millions of sensor-days of data processed
• Tens of thousands of actionable events reported
• Thousands of invisible leaks detected
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3. Smart monitoring changes everything
New light on real conditions and existing processes
• Evidence on fault lifecycles
• System KPIs and where all the money goes
New opportunities to take action
• React before major failure – requires new tools
• Reprioritise across the utility, using new insight and data
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4. Good news: smart monitoring drives
spending increase on field crews
Less false alerts, greater accuracy
More early warning
More leakage fixed
per field crew hour
Point of diminishing returns is at
much larger field workforce
Save OPEX by hiring crews
(Economic Level of Leakage changed!)
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5. The five stages of new KPIs
Time to awareness of leaks was weeks, not days
(and users don’t always recognise leaks after getting the alert)
Sensor availability is 75%, not 90%
(and the 15% difference is misleading data, not just missing)
Denial: “That’s not leakage” or “you added up wrong”
Anger: “You’re ruining my report” or “so I should fire Joe”
Bargaining: “Can we call it something else? Split the difference?”
Depression: “So now we’re worse off than 5 years ago”
Acceptance: “Let’s start a new team or process for that”
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6. Better leakage reduction means
less Ml/day repaired
• Many leaks grow (gradually or suddenly)
• Fixing larger leaks may be a sign of inefficiency
April 7th May 1st
1 l/s 4 l/s
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7. The value of water loss reduction is
not (just) the cost of water loss reduced
Lost water
Damage and
(production  Repairs
fines
distribution)
Interruptions Asset
Water quality
to service longevity
Supply
Public
capacity of
relations
network
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8. And other shockers…
• That meter sample is worth 10¢ (or much more)
Raw data costs money and creates value
• Leak detection least helpful during peak leakage
Visible bursts are most urgent,
and field location/repair may be a bottleneck
• Vast majority of leakage repairs are insignificant
due to “random” targeting + location incentive
• OPEX can be “smart money”!
SWAN services economy, from sensors to analytics
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9. So is SWAN adoption very complex?
• First take the basic gains from each component
• The new facts were true before we knew them
• Opportunities to rethink established practices
Technology has already disrupted this industry:
staying behind is a losing proposition
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