Between evolving global water demands and difficult-to-navigate crises like the one unfolding in the United Kingdom, utilities are increasingly faced with complex challenges and relying on new methods of doing business to keep up. Implementing cutting-edge IT solutions can help utilities bridge the gap between legacy processes and tough-to-navigate modern scenarios.
Of course, water differs significantly in many respects from other utilities—like gas and electricity. For one, “it’s something that all our customers put in their bodies,” Marc Rosson, Enterprise Architect at Snohomish PUD, recently told attendees at the inaugural SAP Water and Wastewater Utility Community meeting.
The webinar, the first of a series focused on the water and wastewater utilities community, featured a presentation by Miquel Carbó, Director of Water and Waste Management at SAP, who highlighted six specific challenges water utilities are facing—water scarcity, augmenting capital expenditures, legislation, aging workforces, inflation in energy prices, and sustainability—along with case studies of how SAP customers are leveraging SAP solutions to address challenges.
One area Carbó focused on was augmenting capital expenditures. This is a tricky undertaking for many professionals in the utilities space, as the changing dynamics of utility needs have shifted water infrastructure requirements. Carbó used desalination plants as an example. While some companies traditionally relied on freshwater sources, like lakes and rivers, growing customer demand necessitated the construction of desalination plants on the coast. This represents a massive undertaking for utilities, and a significant challenge financially and logistically.
Carbó then took attendees through the ways SAP solutions can help organizations confront these challenges, discussing five benefits that can be unlocked through technology modernization:
- Gaining operational efficiency
- Becoming data-driven enterprises
- Proactive asset management
- Enabling digital workforces
- Ensuring sustainability via digitalization.
Focusing on gaining operational efficiency, Carbó discussed how SAP S/4HANA helped a Brazilian utility company standardize its processes. The 12-month implementation was credited with driving reductions in spot volume purchasing and consulting costs for compliance monitoring. Additionally, transformation spurred an improvement in productivity related to services spending.
Finally, Carbó walked attendees through water architecture at SAP, highlighting ways organizations can leverage their software investments to tackle processes such as smart meter data management. Attendees were then allowed to ask Carbó specific questions, which ranged from how SAP customers are approaching measuring water quality to how attendees are training new employees.
Keep an eye out for an upcoming SAP Water and Wastewater Utility Community meeting focused on how SAP customers are leveraging SAP Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software.