Situation
South East Water Corporation wanted to embrace smart utility functions to better manage its water assets for 800,000 customers. By leveraging real-time performance intelligence, South East Water Corporation hoped to prevent network leakages and improve performance transparency so customers could avoid “bill shock.” However, to deploy digital meters and IoT devices across 3,640 square kilometres in Melbourne, South East Water Corporation required a cohesive platform that could manage and utilize real-time data while managing the devices.
Collaboration
Wipro led multiple workshops with South East Water Corporation, ultimately recommending a Digital Information Platform to connect asset planners, network operators, and customers with useful insights drawn from real-time data. The Azure-based platform acknowledged, tracked, and enriched real-time notifications from IoT devices such as digital meters, sensors, and SCADA systems. Then, by leveraging automated workflows, the platform engaged the necessary systems to act appropriately (e.g. billing, approvals, and alerts management).
Events detected by the smart/digital meters were handled by Pega Event Strategy Manager from the Pega Customer Decision Hub, with a decision engine applying the necessary business rules to enrich the information and invoke the required systems to act. The integrated platform delivered timely customer notifications via the preferred channels, alerting customers three times before levying extra charges if data analysis indicated unusual consumption patterns during a 5- to 10-day period. Wipro also implemented smart workflows so South East Water Corporation could improve its handling of user migrations and new-user onboarding, with all end-user messages meeting the company’s privacy obligations, contact policies, and regulations.
Outcomes
The new platform enabled South East Water Corporation to gather enriched data in real-time from water and sewer networks. The resulting increase in visibility and intelligence encouraged faster detection of leakages, tampering, and flow issues, delivering financial benefits for the company as well as its customers. In addition, the system automatically alerted customers three times about unusual consumption patterns before levying extra charges, thus avoiding bill shocks. Automation functions also enabled South East Water Corporation to initiate faster migration to smart meters, improve its asset management, reduce infrastructure and operational costs, and provide an enhanced customer experience.