Length of project:
July 2015-ongoing
Key Services:
Integration and data alignment of source systems
Enhanced Network Management & Reporting
Dashboard development for real-time network monitoring
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has one of the most demanding water infrastructures in the world. The Kingdom aims is to manage this critical and scarce resource in the most secure, sustainable and cost-effective way.
The Saudi water sector has undergone tremendous changes over the past decades from a system based on the use of local renewable water resources for small-scale irrigation and limited domestic use to a system largely based on the use of desalinated water and groundwater for large-scale irrigation and domestic, commercial and industrial uses at a level comparable to developed countries.
The National Water Company (NWC) was setup in 2008 for the operation of urban water distribution systems in the four largest cities; recently expanded to cover a Kingdom-wide remit. NWC’s focus on reducing the level of Non-Revenue Water (NRW) in the entire network has triggered various initiatives to transform its ability to manage its infrastructure and network. This has included the rollout of unified centralised systems for GIS, customer billing, workforce management and SCADA. A smart metering programme has also been implemented to automate the reading of all water connections across the Kingdom. Leakage in the distribution network is a significant proportion of the NRW, with various initiatives in recent years to address aging infrastructure.
With the introduction of more data and systems, NWC recognised the need to integrate the information into a system that would enable them to visualise and manage the network. NWC went to market in a competitive tender for a Water Management System (WMS) in 2015 which was the start of Crowder & Co relationship with them. The implementation of our flagship Netbase WMS product in Riyadh in 2016, evolved into the rollout across the city business units (BU) of Riyadh, Mecca, Taif and Jeddah.
The implementation of the WMS provided NWC with a wholistic view of the network status, both from a strategic/planning perspective as well as an operational/decision support tool. Operational staff can interrogate and visualise network status, as well as Control Room staff being able to monitor and action network issues using real-time data insights.
The use of the WMS in the Kingdom’s holy sites in Mashaer during the annual Hajj pilgrimage season provided NWC’s control room staff with the ability to plan, monitor, manage and proactively address issues with field crews to mitigate potential water supply shortage issues.
The project work items can be summarised as follows:
The Roadmap activity was the key dependency for the implementation of the WMS, to determine which WMS functionality and tools can be implemented in the BU covering:
Review of corporate systems data quality and completeness
Collation of information regarding planned/existing projects of network improvements
Assessment of existing network sectorisation and instrumentation
Determining BU operational structure roles and responsibilities
Identifying current business processes and reports
An Infrastructure Design exercise was completed for each BU to determine the IT covering database servers, web application servers, etc. The design accounted for the anticipated volumes of data and expected growth for each BU. A detailed data and structure review of each NWC source system was carried out, through the completion of data requirements documents for each system; understanding the content and structure of the data and to map to their equivalent in WMS. Source system load routines were then developed for system build.
System Build was undertaken on the NWC environment following database creation as specified in the design phase. An initial load of the data from all the source systems was undertaken for each BU to enable the WMS configuration and initialisation activities. The network configuration was undertaken based on the available data as defined in the roadmap exercise. WMS applications initialisation for each BU was guided by the roadmap recommendations; setting up those applications identified according to the BU readiness assessment.
The User Acceptance Testing (UAT) was carried out after system build. The user training consisted of core application training based on an agreed training plan. Users were identified and assigned application roles, then enrolled onto our eLearning platform for access to training materials. User training was a mix of classroom environment training remotely via MS Teams as well as in-person.
Workshops with NWC were carried out to define and develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for each business function. The NWC operations department was engaged for validation and analysis of the WMS Water Balance outputs/reports. The Control Room staff were engaged for business processes decision making based on the WMS Alarm Management SOPs using the WMS web dashboards.
The purpose of the pilot was:
To introduce and establish the use of the WMS HM Manager application for model building, calibration, model updating and maintenance in NWC.
To define model building and calibration processes and standards with NWC.
To review the base data for readiness and issues for building models.
To identify the field – test requirements for calibrating models using both permanent and temporary sensors.
To establish the strategic process of a model building programme, starting with initial models and progressing to resolve the network and data issues and anomalies that are found in the initial models.
To introduce a QA process for models in NWC
To build and calibrate an initial pilot model and apply analysis scenarios
To provide a comprehensive Handover Report on the pilot model
To review the modelling skills in NWC and establish a framework for training and support of modelling and QA.