After months of coordinating, planning and preparing, on the 3rd of July we hosted our Annual Netbase Conference, held at the Liver Suite in the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool for the second year in a row. Attended by over 60 delegates from 11 client Utilities from across the UK and further afield, this was our opportunity to showcase what we have been up to, as well as hearing how our Clients have been using our solutions.
After welcoming our clients with morning pastries and hot drinks, we dived into the morning session where our solutions development leads presented our Product Road Map, illustrating the continuous and sustainable evolution of our Netbase products. This included the Industry Solutions Roadmap and the Cloud Native Netbase Roadmap where we discussed the Netbase and digital services developments, as well as ongoing industry solutions and product support. At Crowders, we are already on our AI journey and during the conference, we shared some of our digital solutions (such as NetAlytics) that are actively leveraging machine learning algorithms, to more accurately detect outliers and improve estimates. We are very excited about where AI can take the water industry.
A short break later, we were into our first main topic of the day; Dynamic Demand. Our Engineers and Data Scientists presented the themes of making consumptions dynamic and the water balance smarter. Our ambition is for the Dynamic Demand solution to support our clients, by incorporating water management programmes for demand reduction and sustainable resources. The team shared the insights gained from working with a variety of clients, covering topics such as consumption data streams, blocks, cohorts and dynamic water balance. This provided a great introduction to the panel discussion that followed.
After a well-deserved lunch break, which gave everyone an opportunity to catchup and network, we started our afternoon sessions. The first topic of the afternoon was Upstream Network Solutions. Our team of Engineers and Developers showcased how our solutions (such as our end-to-end UNART solution and schematics in our NetConn application) are supporting efficient operation of upstream networks, regulatory reporting and production planning. The engineers then demonstrated some of our solutions to show the functionality and capability of the application, whilst also introducing one of our newer applications, NTRACC. Once again, these presentations provided a focus for the panel discussion that followed.
Our next topic was NetOps and NetAlytics Total Leakage, our digital leakage management solutions aimed at improving effectiveness and efficiency of leakage targeting and detection efforts. Our Engineers showcased our solutions’ capabilities and were joined by the project team from Baringa Partners and Binnies, who presented the project in the context of Thames Water’s wider leakage transformation programme. They demonstrated how implementing our solutions and the associated new ways of working contributed towards Thames Water’s phenomenal achievement of lowering leakage by 48 Mld in the past year!
Our final topic of the day was Life Cycle Hydraulic Modelling. Our Engineers and Developers presented around the theme of streamlining hydraulic model data and demand management; showcasing our model build, update and import tools (NTRACC / HMM / Model Exports) and our Demand analysis dashboards.
What an event! 🙌
We were very thankful that several of our clients were involved in our panel discussions throughout the conference. These discussions provided valuable insights into the challenges they face as a Water Utility and the way in which our products and services have contributed to overcoming these.
Special acknowledgement to the following panel speakers, who generously shared their expertise and perspectives 👏:
Our Dynamic Demand panel:
- Mikal Willmott from Severn Trent Water
- Luke Stockdale from Northumbrian Water
- Adam Smith from Yorkshire Water
- Lukasz Swienzynski from Thames Water.
Our Upstream Networks panel:
- Andrew Blenkharn from Northumbrian Water
- Ronnie Mills from Yorkshire Water
- Kris Morton from Thames Water
Our NetOps/Total Leakage speakers:
- Amanda Olsson Johansson from Baringa Partners (Thames Water)
- Steve Airey from Baringa Partners (Thames Water)
- Colin Cox from Binnies (Thames Water)
A big thank you goes out to all the Crowder staff involved, for dedicating their efforts and expertise in collating the comprehensive materials on such important aspects of the water industry. One of our lovely delegates sent us the following message the day after the conference: "Just wanted to say thank you so much for organising a brilliant couple of days! I think it’s the most well-organised event I’ve ever attended, and everyone at the Crowder team was so friendly and helpful". It's rewarding to get this kind of feedback, as a lot of time and effort went on behind the scenes to ensure the day ran smoothly. We have a great team of event organisers, so thank you to everyone who was involved.
Finally, we wish to extend our deepest gratitude to all our delegates whose active participation and contributions generated great discussions. We look forward to working alongside you all to develop our solutions to inevitably, help to reduce the loss of the finite resource, water.
We hope to see all of you at our upcoming workshops and, of course, at our Netbase Conference 2025!
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