How White House Utility District uses IIoT to improve operations in water and wastewater

Guests: Pat Harrell, District Engineer,  Josh Gregory, Water Loss Analyst, and Kim Klotter, Wastewater Coordinator. 
Co-host: Gary Wong, Industry Principal, AVEVA.


The White House Utility District (WHUD) is the largest water utility in Tennessee by geography, serving consumers and businesses just north of Nashville. Since it started making better use of its sensor-based data using state-of-the-art IIoT (industrial internet of things) technologies in 2016, its infrastructure leakage index (ILI) decreased from 1.49 to 0.76. In this episode we talk about pressure management, leaks, and I&I with those who made the changes to improve their operation.

Water Loss Analyst Josh Gregory explains how they view their sensor-based data on ArcGIS map displays, how they divide their service area into district measured areas (DMAs), and how calculations of the water flows within each DMA allows them to focus on the important locations to improve leak detection. District Engineer Pat Harrell describes using advanced pressure management to determine the causes of leaks and what changes this allows them to make to how their operate their equipment. Wastewater Coordinator Kim Klotter describes how more easily accessible flowmeter data and calculations allows her to better hone in on locations of inflow and infiltration (I&I). 

Co-hosting this episode is Gary Wong, industry principal for water at AVEVA. 

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:09

Well welcome everybody to Radio PI. Today our guests are from White House Utility District. This is an update to a 2016 project that they did to visualize sensor based data on their ArcGIS maps. So this is the esri ArcGIS screens. Back then they told us how they got a value realization in only three and a half days. So they've done a lot since then, including some very big detection successes. We're going to talk to them abou that today. Just for som background, White House Utilit is the largest water utility i Tennessee by geography, servin customers and businesses jus north of Nashville. They believ that water is Earth's greates natural resource. And the goa is to be good stewards of it which as you see in the example today is really just goo business. So I'd like to star by introducing Pat Harrell District Engineer Hello, Pat Hey, how are you doing? Rea good. Thanks. And we're talkin to Josh Gregory Water Lo s Analyst. Hello, Josh. Hello, h w are you? Good. And here's K m Klotter, Wastewater Coordinator. Hello, Kim. Hi, Nick. Good to be with you today. Right. Our co-host today is Gary Wong. He's the industry principal for water here at AVEVA. Hello, Gary. Plea ure to be here. Well, than s for being here, ever body. Let's start with Pat, what s it been like for you work ng through the pandemic. We'v never worked through anyt ing like a pandemic. And sure that we've learned, hope ully, we've learned a lot. It's things have progressed with COVI over the last year. So we'v had to change the way we do a lot of things are chal enges to provide life sust ining services, water and sewe service. So we couldn't real y just go home on something like that and wait it out. So our eneral manager, you know, adop ed a strategy early on us maki g sure that no one that ever body was going to, we were only gonna be successful if we were able to keep our employees heal hy, because they're their grea est asset. And we want to, we'v invested in them really heav ly over the last few years. So i really good doing our jobs And without them wouldn't real y matter how much tech ology we had or how we're goin to equipment ran, we've got o have them healthy and avai able. So last spring, you know we decided that the quic est way we can accomplish that was to distance our people from one another and from the publ c. So they're all used to bein in in the office, seeing each other every day and exch nging information face to face quite a bit. We're really conn cted by tools and the desk op environment in the offi e. So when we needed to be able to make those available to our mployees remotely, we were real y fortunate to already kind of h ve invested in PI. And we had eveloped some applications and ome solutions at a time that were ready to go before COVI started. But then they were really easy to move over to mobi e devices, which is we woun up using quite a bit to be able to share and display info mation and get the noti ications alarms through emai that that we're used to seei g. So yeah, PI has helped a lot. As a matter of fact, we didn t see a drop in the level of s rvice that we provided. Beca se we'd already started rely ng on these solutions. And we'r able to put some some new solu ions through the year in plac. So in fact, we're able to refi e some things and build out some things throughout COVID that we had started before COVI. So we're really happy with where we turned out to be ther. And we can look back on it. nd we're happy to say that we t ink we definitely didn't impa t us as bad as it could have Great. Thanks, Pat. So look Josh, can you tell us a litt e bit about the April 2016 proj ct for taking such a vari ty of data sources and brin ing them into your ArcGIS maps into your entry screens? You now, what was the business case for doing that? How did you get uch good results so quic ly? Yeah, so what we did to start with is we had took our 600 square mile service area and and tried to make it into smaller, more manageable pieces that we call district metered areas. We had in that we had several different data sources that, you know, they they went to their own location. With PI, we were able to consolidate all those data sources to go to one location which helped out you know, tremendously. And also for dma's, there were several KPIs that I was figuring manually, well, with power, we were able to automate all those KPIs which say, you know, several hours a day. And that was time that I was able to use to, you know, better interpret and better understand the data that we're looking at. PI allowed us to consolidate all that data, we're able to put it in, you know, vision displays and GIS dashboards, so that everybody in the you know, in throughout the district, could consume their data. And for the first time, we were just we were able to see what was happening, you know, across the service area. And we use that actionable data to prioritize and find the more impactful and you know, more impactful generally means larger lakes. So you know, that's getting the larger lakes got us kicked out good raw back to Josh. So with with better visibility, I'm just kind of curious, did you see any kind of low hanging fruit whereas almost an unintended consequence of people having better visualizations than they did before? You know, we hear about this all the time, just exposing the data to people allows them to see things where they can just change their practices. Did you see any of that? Yeah, I mean, one thing that comes to my mind, right off the bat was, you know, you just you learn how, how your system operates. We had water flow in some directions that we thought it flowed other directions and bound bales that were supposed to be open there were actually closed and learn little things like that. So just aside from just actual finding other lakes, there's a lot of different little things we found out about our, you know, our service area, just little tidbits, just extra. I Josh, with the sensors and the dma's in place, I was just wondering if you could let us know, how you're able to find more leaks or reduce the leak runtimes and in terms of finding leaks much faster. Yeah, well, you know, to start with, I mean, I guess we all sump anything new, I guess we all had to develop a confidence in the data we're looking at. So we weren't, you know, questioning the data, or we were just taking what it sold us and going and, and trying to, you know, find lakes. better understanding of our infrastructure helped us to improve and cut the run times, we are identified weak spots in our district that, you know, some of them were known, you know, weak spots, you just through time you find but the thing is, we saw this data every day. So we didn't have to wait on a customer call and delay call, or, you know, somebody to say we got a lot of rural areas, and a lot of times they're, they're out there, and they're never seen, they're in the middle of a field or whatever. But you know, with this way, we see I see the, the flows and our damn eyes every morning, and we can react, you know, quick, because we're not just waiting on something, we see it in the data. The flexibility of the software was a big, you know, big thing, we we set it up on paper. And most of it was good, but there was it, we saw a need to cut some of the dma's further. And, you know, it was it was the software was very adaptable to the changes that were created, you know, on the ground, it was it was easily navigated, and I could adapt it to the new system, as opposed to just those changes that better visibility, is that something that is an improvement that you can measure? Yeah, the main way that we measure that is through the infrastructure Leggett index, it's a way for utilities to measure non revenue water against an industry standard. And 16, when we get going on this, our infrastructure Lake index, or Iowa was 1.49. And it's dropped, you know, every year. And as of last year, we were at a point seven, six. So that's that's the primary why we measured, Josh, so how has that changed how people work and all the institutional knowledge that comes along with it? What is done, it's made us responsive rather than reactive. In most cases, we can adjust to what the data says. And in a lot of cases, find a leak before it turns into an emergency. The guys in the field now have a lot of confidence in the data. We have one guy that he's been here about 40 years and he did things a certain wire for so long. So he was he was skeptical about what we're doing. But you know, as he's saying that, yes, the date is right. But that is On this what it actually is. He's He's became a believer. And so it's the way we do things completely different way, you know, we it's we're able to prioritize areas and not just go aimlessly from connection connection, just not knowing where the lake edge is actually. Now that example you just described, it sounds like it brings up the whole issue of institutional knowledge that's leaving a lot of a lot of organizations. Is this helpful in you know, addressing that? Yeah, that's, that's what this is done. We rely on data now rather than institutional knowledge. Right. Okay. Well, here's a question for anybody. Do you have any recent examples that you can take us through of, you know, really kind of high profile, leak detections where this is coming? real handy? Yeah, just here a couple of weeks ago, I came in, you know, like I Dave, every morning, I checked all the workloads and all my zones. And I noticed one had it spiked a little, it hadn't spiked enough of a priority yet. But it had spikes. So I watched it, and the next day, it went up some more so then it was priority. What we did we, we create what we call serve the amaze, we can do them overnight, or we can doing during the day, and then and then raid our variety of DMA meters, what we'll do is we'll close by hours to create a smaller zone inside of the larger. And the GIS helps with that tremendously, because the guys in the field can just go on there, choose the valves that create a smaller zone and read a meter and then that'll tell you how much is there. So what we did for this lake, we started like we always do with what I mentioned earlier, the weak spots and the infrastructure. This was a little different looking contradictory, because you know, most of the time it is the weak spots that are given that trouble. That's why we go there first, but this one, this one wasn't in any weak spots, so they looked over. So then once we found we eliminated a lot of area by just eliminating the usual weak spots, and then what we did, we continue to make serve dma's. And we started by closing valves, with the flows and ozone, he opens and veils back up, you squeeze it tighter and tighter and tighter. And then we got narrowed down to a small stretch of 12 inch PVC. Like it was about about 2000 feet of it. So then, the guys in the field, they started using their service surface listening device to try to try and find it. And what they found was it was in a driveway, the lancom cross country, and then it came through a guy's driveway, there wasn't a drop of water on the ground anywhere. But then when I dug down and found it, it was about probably about 175 gallon a minute like that, I saw that zone, go back to normal the next day. Wow, very cool. I've heard you talk about advanced pressure management, I was just wondering if you could let us know how you're using the sensor data. You know, we historically monitor pressure from our existing skater sites for Gosh, over 20 years. But really, those were fixed monitors that reported to SCADA and they tell us what was going on right in your pumps. But they mainly use that data to just evaluate pump operation, and did a little bit of planning with it, but really didn't apply it to leak detection or to try to prevent leaks in the field. So the leak loggers that we have now were able to deploy those and, you know, remotely collect data for several different purposes. You know, one of those things we use us for is it customer services where we can monitor customer data at their meter at their house, we can also deploy those out in our system and monitor our pressure reducing stations. So you know, both on the customer side for their private equipment and our public equipment on the mains, that's mechanical equipment, and it's prone to failure and they can fail that can creep out of adjustment. So what we're finding is, is we would manually go to these sites to check these pressures, we would find that those things are settings with drift. So what would happen is pressure would either go above the desired pressure below it. But if we've got real time data collection, we're able to see those changes before they get out of hand and cause major problems. So in the past couple of years, we've also become really interested in pressure transients, that was something that we didn't pay attention to really didn't even know about maybe five or six years ago, but the new centers that we have are capable of monitoring the transients which is we'll talk about that maybe a little bit later and expand on that one. It's important to us yeah, I mean, how does that help? Because so so you're you're, you're able to see when you're getting transients, the spikes and pressures. What is that? What does that allow you to do? Yeah, like you mentioned at the beginning, you know, we got a huge surface area, about 1100 miles of pipes and can't be everywhere at once, we can't quit, just collect manual measurements everywhere to see when either high or low pressure transients are occurring. So we use a container continuous monitoring and let the data come back to us and let it work for us. So we can focus our efforts where we know that problems are nalsar can use things like PI applications to crunch the numbers for the data. And then what that does is it really conserved resources. So we're able to limit the number of in person site visits to go out into the field, and drive out there physically does locations either confirm operation of equipment, or manually collect data. So as an example, we've got several dozen pressure reducing stations, and just one round trip driving trip to those for a person, I gotta drive over 200 miles to cover that area. So it's really gonna last cut down on those sorts of things. And then we'll have better data as well, we were manually collecting that information before and, and these are things now with automatic data, we can we can set alarms based on the thresholds that are unique to each location. And then when we the alerts are occur, we get those notifications to let us know when we need to go visit a spot and see what's going on. So you know, all of that helps us continue to lengthen our asset lives and and cut down on burst events. Was there any specific set of events that made you decide to do it this way? You know, Josh has made some incredible progress by just looking at flow data on number of new water and reduce that volume in the past several years, like he mentioned. But if we wanted to continue to improve, we know we're going to have to eliminate things like first advanced where you figure out what's causing the brakes in the first place. So if we're going to reduce non revenue, water, he's not doing necessarily every possible thing you can do. But he's really got that under control. So if we can address the first events, we think there's a lot of ground to be covered there. So with the, you know, we looked at three sections of pipe where we were having really hot break frequencies and last several years, and we were averaging about one break per month on these three sections of pipe, which is that that's that's excessive. And I think it made me buddy's book, and it would definitely was for us. So those things are really costly, we lose a lot of water, it's very disruptive for our customers, because they were burst events where they actually lost service completely, not just not just the leak, but a break that occurred took them out of service. So you know, our amridge was really suffering because that activity, so we collected data around those areas. And you know, it came to us that they were around water pump stations and or valves that were opening and closing in the system. And what we found was happening is the the operation of the equipment hit for years and years been operating in such a way that it was creating transients pressure transients. So always pump start too fast, or stop too slow, or valves open too quickly or close too quickly. The water movement starts and stops quickly and creates us those those transients and it's really damaged pipes. So we modify the operation of our pumps where we flow the ramp times and slug there shut down tabs. Same thing with vowels that were causing transients, slow the opening phase and closing speeds, and then use those pressure monitors to confirm that the transients had been eliminated with that adjusted operation. So now we've just pretty much virtually eliminated the brakes on the worst events in this area. And you know, as we were gonna wait with we invested maybe 10,000 bucks in the equipment to do the monitoring. And with those three areas where we were thinking we're going to replace the pipe work, we saved about $2 million in capital improvements that we didn't need to construct because we're able to eliminate the transients. So you know, our customers also get the benefit of this because those transients were being transferred into their private plumbing. And not only does it keep our breaks from happening on our side, and then public infrastructure, but the customer is also enjoying that. So that also lets us get a higher level of service to them in that respect on their private side. Thanks, Pat. Kim. Now there's another optimization you all at White House Utility District have done and that involves info inflow and infiltration. Can you describe that issue and what your solution was for? Like most utilities that operate a wastewater collection system, you're always trying to reduce the amount of Ana or inflow and infiltration that get into the system, and ionize groundwater or storm water that seeps in through defects and pipes or manholes or even illegal connections into the system. And, you know, this water really is relatively pretty cool. But once it seeps into the system, there's a cost associated with that now we have to pay pay to treat this excess water. So our system is divided into two zones. And much like Josh was able to break down his DMH zones into smaller and smaller pieces looking for leaks, we were able to break down our sewer zones into smaller pieces looking for an A, and you know, each of our sub zones have a pump station. And they all have SCADA monitoring. And we were able to pull flow and rain data from each station into asset comparison tables. And we added some formulas so that we could look at the ANA and the cost associated with each subdomain. And doing that we're able to see really easily you know, where a problem areas are, and kind of where we needed to, to focus. And so once we had that, that target zone, you know, we're able to, to deploy some portable flow meters and kind of break that zone sub zone down even more. And you'll then compare the flows which with among those meters, and see, you know, okay, this little section of this sub zone is, is now our target. And basically, we're narrowing it down until we get to the the neighborhood level or the street level. And, you know, we kind of hone in on that source of honor. And you were able to make the repairs or modifications, you know, to it to eliminate that now. And so, you know, having this targeted approach is a real improvement over, you know, just heading out into the rain storms and hoping that we get lucky. Okay, so with so much more information coming in? How are you using some of that pressure data around your air release valves? Sure, Gary, similar to how Pat is using pressure data to optimize the water distribution system, we're using pressure data to monitor and maintain our sewer force mains, and extend the life of our pumps and equipment within the system. You'll all have our or not all of them. But we have air release valves installed along our sewer force mains. And these valves allow entrapped air to escape from within the pipe. And you know that that reduces the pressure within the pipe. But it also reduces the pressure over the whole system so that our pumps upstream aren't a aren't having to overcome as much pressure to push that wastewater downstream. And so the less pressure there is within the system, the less wear and tear that there's going to be on the pumps, and the more water that we can pump downstream with that same amount of energy. So on all of our air released about on some of our air release valves, we have these pressure recorders installed. And PI allows us to see and compare the pressure label or pressure levels at our pump stations that have skater monitoring, but then also the pressure on throughout our system with these pressure recorders. And, you know, with this being integrated into our GIS, we're also able to see all of our sites across the system and see the historical data that's associated with each of these sites. And you're one powerful element of this is that you were able to package all of this information into maps and dashboards, and integrate that into our asset management software. And that really helps because when your field staff is out, trying to make an urgent decision, you know, whether it's, you know, restoring service to our customers or maintaining service to our customers, they're able to quickly and easily access all of this data in one platform. I was curious if all of the things that you've been doing the optimizations are they in service of any kind of greater goals, corporate wide sustainability, that type of thing. You know, a lot of the corporate goals we've got what would just a bullet point list one of those first things would be, you know, equipment are really good employees with actionable data. We want to do that to empower them so that they can make better decisions and, and have a better insight into our system. furthering a digital transformation really is it suits our people in the GMC vision? Well, we don't want to adopt application you know, just For the sake of technology, but we want those to work for us. And this allows us to do that. Another big thing that you've heard Josh and Kim mentioned is integration with GIS. So we make use of the PI Integrator for Esri ArcGIS. It's a great way to visualize things and keep up keep with things geographically. So that long, that same theme where we got the large geographic area, knowing where things are, and what's going on with them is a big deal for us. We're also able to, you know, improve our image and the public trust is we're able to show them things that is backed by data, not just by opinions or thoughts that we might have, we're also able to show a good stewardship with our money, our time, and natural resources. And then, you know, improving service to our customers is the overarching goal for all this. We're utility. So we don't necessarily have competitors in the area, some, but our general manager really pushes service is the thing that we need to be known for, and that we really, we have to strive to do that the best we can. So all these tools really help us do that. Well, that's fantastic. I was just wondering if there's anything else that you've done in the last 12 months around operational efficiency, asset reliability, anything else that you'd like to share? Sure, Gary, I'd like to, to note that our wastewater team is really small. And for us to be able to automate such a significant portion of our operations, it really frees us up to, you know, focus on other things within our department. You know, we used to do a lot of time based inspection, you know, once a week, once a day, or once a week, once a month, we'd be going back and doing the same, you know, routine task. But now we've moved to more condition based inspections. And you know, a lot of that repetitive work, you know, is just being eliminated. And, you know, we're able to focus on what really needs our attention. And when you have a small group that's really important for us. All of the impacts that from the things that you've heard Josh and Kim mentioned, and then are some of our other stuff where we're eliminating a lot of the burst demands, all of that relates back to energy consumption. So just by virtue of doing a better job in those areas that were specifically pursuing energy, we've seen a lot of gains in that area. But we're working with our power providers now to do more of an in depth study and seeing how we might do load shedding or timing of power use so that we can do that more efficiently. And, and then as well for a reduced costs for our customers. But that's what's in it for us is we are able to get the right power monitors in place, and then start looking at that to try to conserve power. Well, good. That's it. Thanks. That's that's all the questions I wanted to ask. Actually, I hope you don't mind. I'd like to ask you a quick lightning round of questions. Since you're all working in operations, the culture of operations is certainly unique. I'm just kind of curious. What would you say if you're at career day, and you're telling schoolchildren what you do for a living? Who wants to go first? Let's just play with the coolest toys known to man. Well, I gotta admit that the see the question I want to ask is, what were what were those unauthorized connections to the system? cam? Is that really a thing in your industry? Oh, well, sometimes we do find where roof drains are connected to the system, you know, maybe they were put in, you know, years and years ago, but instead of draining out into our yard, so go into the the sewer system or, you know, sometimes sump pumps from pokes basement will be connected to the sewer system. And no, you know, nothing to do lurid. But we do find those type of connections sometimes. Okay, okay. So it's Kurt at school, what do you tell them? You know, we're responsible for providing wastewater and water service to a lot of customers. And it's a pretty cool, pretty cool field, we wind up providing life sustaining water to people and involves fire protection, that drinking water, irrigation for plants, and then you know, taking that water away as it's used, and then taking it to treatment facilities and make it useful or appropriate to discharge back into the environment for use again. And all these tools we've been talking about today are, are very cool. And we're fortunate to have those available to us to be able to do that better. Now, I know you were saying that White House Utility District is the largest geographical water service in Tennessee. You must have some absolutely beautiful views that nobody else in the state gets to see what's the best view you've ever seen anybody. Other views from the water tanks got to be probably the best things that I've seen. Getting on top of those a few 100 feet up in the air and then they're on top of the beautiful ridges here in Middle Tennessee a lot of pre scenery. Well, thank you so much, everybody for for being our guest today. We've been talking to pat Harrell, Josh Gregory and Kim clowder at White House Utility District. Thank you so much for being our guest today. Enjoy it. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Cam phase Josh and Gary Wong are co hosts today. Thank you so much for joining everybody who's been viewing Thank you so much. We'll see you again in another two weeks. Bye bye.