Connected tech company Hitachi Consulting, which provides Internet of Things (IoT) analytics solutions and services, has formed a strategic partnership with South West Water Limited in the UK.
Hitachi has said that it will bring real-time analytics to South West Water in a bid to make operations and company processes more agile across the board.
South West Water is responsible for maintaining and providing water services to homes and businesses all across Devon and Cornwall, as well as some parts of Dorset and Somerset.
Related: Hitachi forms new business to grow IoT
Industry change
There’s currently a big change taking place in the water industry, with firms increasingly turning to technology to help them improve their products and services for customers.
South West Water, in particular, has a strong focus on boosting suitability in its operations. Hitachi is to supply it with a range of IoT solutions, including operational technology, Supervisory Control and Data Access (SCADA) and telemetry data.
The American firm claims that this will help South West Water teams make faster, better informed decisions when it comes to improving customer service and work quality.
At the same time, the technology should also help the water maintenance company predict operational performance, deploy maintenance solutions effectively and comply with pivotal industry regulation.
New challenges
Kevin Nankivell, head of information technology at South West Water, said the company has been dealing with a plethora of challenges around data and performance so wanted to find a technological solution.
“We collect huge volumes of data on water quality, network performance, customer service, maintenance and a variety of other measures, and it can be a challenge to consolidate and analyse these sources of information in a cost effective manner,” he said.
The partnership will see Hitachi provide South West Water with Microsoft Azure technologies, a cloud computing and connected technology platform. Nankivell is confident it will help boost sustainability and efficiency.
“We chose Hitachi Consulting as our strategic supplier because it has significant experience of delivering new capabilities to organizations using the latest Microsoft Azure technologies. The company’s expertise with data will ensure the project runs quickly and efficiently, helping us to mitigate risk and drive sustainable change within the organisation.”
A strong partnership?
Damian Stirrett, general manager of the Enterprise Partner Group at Microsoft UK, said: “We are delighted that South West Water has chosen to implement Microsoft’s Azure Platform to drive the advancement of Business Intelligence capabilities across the organisation.
“The combination of South West Water’s aims for operational advances, the flexibility of Microsoft’s Azure platform and Hitachi Consulting’s expertise in delivering IoT and analytics solutions is a powerful one. We look forward to delivering innovative solutions to challenges and opportunities in the water sector that drive sustained improvements.”
Claire Thomas, senior account manager at Hitachi Consulting, added: “South West Water has ambitious plans to change the way data is used, to make it a key strategic asset within its organisation, and we are delighted to be working closely with their team to help realise this goal.
“There is a significant amount of change taking place across the water industry at present. The opportunities for implementing new technologies present fantastic possibilities in terms of improving business processes and customer experience.
“As a leading IoT integrator, Hitachi Consulting brings to clients the industry expertise, intellectual property from delivering Big Data solutions across multiple industries, and the innovation and engineering excellence from across the Hitachi Group. In FY15 alone Hitachi Ltd. invested $2.9billion in R&D. This puts us in an ideal position to help South West Water achieve optimised performance and deliver enhanced customer service.”