IoT and Data Transform WaterNSW into a Digital Utility

AMBITION

WaterNSW manages the raw water supply across the Australian state of New South Wales. Because it was formed through a merger between three separate enterprises, it faced inevitable duplications in its processes and systems. In particular, WaterNSW had inherited three independent legacy telemetry systems that were contributing to a lack of standardization, overly complex legacy interfaces, outdated alarm and event management, vendor lock-in, and disconnected configuration management.

At the same time, WaterNSW’s new scale presented an opportunity to leverage digital technologies to reduce risks, modernize technologies and systems, better serve its customers, and meet the evolving needs of regulators. The organization wanted to replace the three distinct systems with a unified telemetry system that fed into a Digital Information Platform (DIP) built on Microsoft Azure cloud. With this new DIP, WaterNSW intended to improve its comprehensive analytics and situational awareness. As a first step, WaterNSW sought to better integrate its metering LIDs (light intelligent devices) and groundwater/surface water monitoring devices with the DIP data lake. This would reduce their overall cost-to-serve while providing a highly scalable digital metering solution. In parallel, WaterNSW’s investments in new IoT solutions for groundwater and surface-water monitoring were expected to enhance real-time visibility of statewide water resources. The organization needed to solve numerous challenges related to data acquisition and management in order to architect a new telemetry solution, deploy new devices, and ensure regulatory compliance.

A New Wave in Water Management with WaterNSW

ACTION

WaterNSW had already installed LIDs to collect data from water meters, and they expected that onboarding new types of low-cost LIDs and improving LID connectivity would further reduce cost-to-serve while boosting agility. Wipro worked with WaterNSW to deploy new government-approved, IoT-enabled LIDs for water metering and connect them (via an improved Azure-based telemetry data acquisition solution) to the DIP data lake. Wipro also worked with WaterNSW to build out a proof of concept for installing IoT-enabled groundwater and surface water monitoring devices and connecting them to the DIP as well. Both solutions ensured real-time integration between Azure cloud services and the source data from IT/OT systems.

In addition to solution design, integration, provisioning, transformation, and change management initiatives, Wipro provided extensive cybersecurity guidance to ensure that the IoT-based telemetry solution communicated through secure, reliable channels.

One of the more novel elements was templatized onboarding for devices of a similar make and model, which enabled efficient bulk onboarding. The solution also incorporated an advanced Device Provisioning Service for remote configuration and management, a capability that was critical for WaterNSW’s business.

AMBITIONS REALIZED

These telemetry advancements have significantly improved WaterNSW’s asset operations and will help WaterNSW prolong asset life while minimizing emergency maintenance costs and after-hours charges. Because the newer low-cost, low-bandwidth devices can be deployed in more remote locations, they are significantly reducing the need for costly in-person site visits. The new Azure-based solution was built to support 34,000 devices and can be further scaled as necessary. It is enabling cost-efficient and improved remote monitoring of groundwater and surface water in New South Wales, and provides WaterNSW with a better understanding of current water volumes and flows across the state to improve their operational decision-making and disaster management preparedness.

Smart dashboards now harmonize IoT-enabled telemetry data for both metering and water monitoring to provide business users with robust situational awareness, advanced analytics, and a single source of truth. OT users are benefiting from a consistent user experience across all devices, including improved user interfaces and self-service features like personalized device notifications. Effective IT/OT integration has eliminated many once-manual tasks, and WaterNSW can now manage the new Azure-based telemetry system without relying on third-party vendors, thereby reducing cost-to-serve. Most importantly, digitalization at WaterNSW has increased the overall security and resilience of the organization’s infrastructure and mission-critical systems while putting the organization well on its way toward achieving a fully unified telemetry system.