Build a Water Utility Digital Twin Roadmap

Build a Water Utility Digital Twin Roadmap

Analyst perspective

Digital twin is not a binary concept

Digital twin technology has long been a prominent topic in water utility industry conferences and utility working groups worldwide. While its potential benefits are enticing to water utility leaders, the roadmap to actualizing this goal often remains unclear.

Digital twin is far from a binary concept. It cannot simply be purchased off the shelf and developed overnight. Rather, it represents a journey of continuous learning and development across multiple capabilities within the digital twin domain, as this research highlights.

Most water utilities have made recent progress in deploying elements toward achieving an ideal digital twin target state. However, what often remains lacking is a holistic view of the digital journey. Each water organization’s business drivers vary, and consequently, so does its digital twin journey.

The starting point in this journey can vary depending on factors like leadership sponsorship, technology maturity, and cultural readiness for managing significant digital transformation programs. Regardless of the chosen approach, it is critical for water utility thought leaders to maintain a focus on the bigger picture while planning their journey, even if the pathways diverge.

The purpose of this research is to offer a valuable and tactical framework for water utility leaders, assisting them in their digital twin roadmap planning.

Jing Wu

Principal Research Director
Utilities, Industry Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Info-Tech Insight

A compelling digital twin roadmap aligns with the organizational vision, bridging current and desired states. Crucially, its modular design and comprehensive scope can drive meaningful progress toward desired outcomes throughout the transformation journey.

Water challenges demand effective water management

Water utilities are struggling to provide clean and safe water for communities. The increasing urgency and severity of global water challenges call for effective water management. While progress has been made in recent decades, water utilities must still do more work to fully leverage the power of digital solutions.

Water demand increases due to rising urban population growth

40%

of estimated shortfall between forecasted demand and available supply of water by 2030 (World Bank, 2022).

Aging infrastructure contributes to water leakages and disrupts services

27%

increase in water main breaks between 2011 and 2018 in the US and Canada, according to a comprehensive water asset management study (Utah State University, 2018).

Looming scarcity of natural water resources puts strain on water supply

1 in 4

children will face extreme water shortage by 2040 (World Bank, 2022).

Extreme water events elevate water demand and raise water quality concerns

51%

of natural disasters worldwide are floods and droughts, with floods being the most common occurrences in 2022 (CRED, 2023).

Digital twins are fast becoming a strategic priority for solving water challenges

Water utilities must accelerate their digital transformation journey facing the escalating global water challenges. Following the success witnessed in other industries, digital twin has emerged as a sought-after digital transformation initiative within the water industry.

Digital twin for water

"A digital, dynamic system of real-world entities and their behaviors using models with static and dynamic data that enable insights and interactions to drive actionable and optimized outcomes."

Source: AWWA, 2023

Digital twin technology was first used in the fields of astronautics and aerospace by NASA in the 1960s. The concept and implementation has gained popularity via the manufacturing industry, where it has been utilized to optimize the lifecycle of a product, ranging from the design and manufacturing process to asset maintenance. The adoption of digital twin technology has been evident in smart grid solutions within electrical utilities. Water utilities have been striving to embrace the promise seen in other industries.

Big data, hyperintegration, and intelligent automation between the physical and digital water world

Benefits of digital twin support water utility value

Sources of value

• Operations efficiency

  Reducing costs through operational performance improvements. Digital twin can help improve pump efficiency, optimize chemical usage, and detect water leakages.

• Business growth

  Expanding the organization’s products/services/capabilities to ultimately drive revenue expansion or customer impact. Digital twin can help make informed decisions about water infrastructure expansion and investments.

• Customer experience

  Improving the customer experience with a product/service via reliability, engagement, transparency, etc. Digital twin can provide insights into customer water usage and provide timely and personalized services.

• Employee experience

  Optimizing the employee experience through changes that make work easier and more enjoyable, thus increasing job satisfaction. Digital twin can automate repetitive tasks and let employees focus on rewarding work.

• Risk and resilience

  Mitigating diverse risk, safety, and continuity of operations concerns to preserve stable and sustainable performance. Digital twin can help with proactively managing asset maintenance plans to ensure service reliability.

• Environmental, social, and governance (ESG)

  Improving environmental impacts, social and community wellbeing, and corporate governance practices. Digital twin can help reduce operational energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and help demonstrate regulatory compliance through accurate and timely data.

Determine how digital twin impacts your organization

Water Utility Business Capability Map

The impact of digital twin permeates throughout the entirety of water utility business capabilities.

A business capability map provides details that help utility leaders and practitioners direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.

The highlighted capabilities demonstrate two distinct focused value creators through an effective digital twin. Your organization’s heat map view will evolve along with your digital twin roadmap.

The scope of digital twin can vary significantly

A digital twin can be a digital model of an object, a system, a process, or an infrastructure. Technology exists to create digital twins at the component level all the way up to the infrastructure level, which will typically be a representation of several individual digital twins integrated together. Digital twins are of several types depending on the real-world object or system they represent.

Component twins

A component twin represents a single part of an object or system.

E.g. digital twin of a filtration system within a water treatment plant

Asset twins

An asset twin represents an object or system. This may be a single twin of the object that has multiple components, or it can be comprised of several twins, each representing a component in the object.

E.g. digital twin of a water reservoir.

System twins

A system twin represents the system and, in some cases, the environment in which the asset operates.

E.g. digital twin of a pump station that has low efficiency.

Process twins

A process twin will represent all the systems involved in the execution of that process.

E.g. digital twin of the water main flushing process simulation.

Infrastructure twins

An infrastructure twin represents a collection of system and process twins and covers the entire ecosystem at infrastructure level at engineering grade accuracy.

E.g. digital twin of the entire water distribution network.

Source: GlobalLogic, n.d.

The intelligence of digital twin can vary substantially

Digital twin is not a binary concept. The level of intelligence in a digital twin can vary, depending on the combined maturity across the following seven areas.

Data Fabric

The extent to which a unified, standardized, and consistent enterprise data platform enables broad integration and accessibility.

Spatial/Physical Presentation

The level of accuracy and fidelity of digital depiction of the physical environment.

Operational System Integration

The extent of closed-loop communication and collaboration among different systems.

Edge/IIoT/Sensors Integration

The volume and coverage of real-time data available for integration with real-time decision-making platforms.

Modelling and Planning

The extent of real-time modelling capabilities that inform short-term and long-term planning.

Control Capability

The degree of self-optimized real-time control capabilities

Decision-Making

The degree to which data-driven actionable insights benefit from predictive and prescriptive capabilities

A digital twin capability model is multidimensional

The scope and maturity of your digital twin renders it a multidimensional and complex journey.

Envision your organizational digital twin storyboard

The digital twin journey for each water utility will vary, shaped by your organizational goals, key stakeholders, and desired intelligent capabilities. You don’t have to finalize your storyboard all at once. Developing a roadmap on how to achieve your vision is essential for quickly realizing benefits.

Tactical planning for vision realization proves challenging

Organizations encounter difficulties in execution when they lack effective planning.

85% of organizations have plans for digital twins.

35% of organizations have started in this direction.

8% of organizations have enacted their plans.

Source: Siemens, 2021

Right-sizing the scope to move the needle has become a crucial planning challenge.

Manage stakeholder expectation and utility worker resistance

Inspired by the great potential of digital twin technology, many utility leaders find themselves brainstorming various use cases. However, seasoned utility workers may be less enthusiastic about digital intrusions to their decades of status quo. Effectively managing the diverse expectations of different users could pose a challenge.

Optimize operational procedures along with digital twin maturity

The inclination to standardize existing operating procedures could hinder the development of digital twin capabilities. It is crucial to establish an iterative two-way feedback loop approach to fine tune and optimize operational procedures along with your digital twin journey to develop maturity. This process takes time, discipline, and a willingness to remain adaptable.

Overcome technical complexity across both IT and OT domains

The digital twin marketplace within the water industry is still evolving, with no dominant or converged vendor offerings yet. Water utilities frequently encounter technical challenges across both IT and operational technology (OT) domains including Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data standardization, data quality, legacy communication network, and integration challenges with existing IT and OT systems, and complexity in architecture.

Justify your business case for scalable deployment

Each water utility faces unique challenges in delivering safe and clean water. The necessity and urgency to adopt digital twin technology often drives the business case. However, utility practitioners typically lack a framework to break down the vision into modular components that would support comprehensive business case development and enable scalable deployment beyond pilot demonstrations.

Create a water utility digital twin roadmap for value amplification

Info-Tech Insight

A compelling digital twin roadmap aligns with the organizational vision, bridging current and desired states. Crucially, its modular design and comprehensive scope can drive meaningful progress toward desired outcomes throughout the transformation journey.

Deliverables/Outcomes

Each step of this research is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Note: An example demonstrating the relationship between deliverables

Water Utility Digital Twin Tactical Roadmap Tool

This tool will help you analyze your organization’s overall capabilities and the gaps between the organization's current and future states.

Build a Water Utility Digital Twin Roadmap Project Overview

Activity 1.1 Define organizational KPIs

1-2 hours

1. Clarify the desired outcome of the strategic goal discussions by initiating conversations that include but are not limited to your organization’s vision, goals, and current challenges, which should extend beyond technology.
2. Discuss what specific KPIs are key to driving the digital twin roadmap development. Info-Tech has populated a sampling of powerful KPIs to get you started in the Water Utility Digital Twin Tactical Roadmap Tool.
3. Identify a small set of prioritized KPIs and their associated business owners who are ultimately accountable for reporting and tracking the KPIs.

Download the tool

Info-Tech Insight

It is imperative to select a set of KPIs that are meaningful, measurable, and achievable.

Prioritize strategic KPIs supported by digital twin

KPIs can provide direction to help prioritize the scope of your digital twin journey. Most importantly, KPIs help leadership and stakeholders to define how success will be measured. While not easy, it is critical in justifying the why which is essential for the success of your digital twin journey. For organizations without KPI insights, developing a digital twin can self-justify the need in the era of data-driven decision-making.

Note: An example demonstrating how to use the tool.

Activity 1.2 Identify a shortlist of use cases

2-4 hours

1. Explain the digital twin capability model on slides 10 and 11 to ensure all working group members share a consistent definition and understanding of the multidimensional nature of the digital twin journey.
2. Elaborate the roadmap planning methodology on slides 16 and 17 to ensure all working group members understand the required steps to collectively define the roadmap and grasp its iterative nature in the planning exercise.
3. Collect ideas broadly and complete all the columns on the tool to facilitate comprehensive brainstorming discussions. This step can expand across multiple sessions.
4. Discuss the high-level value and readiness per use case using the columns of KPIs and digital twin required capabilities in seven areas to pinpoint a shortlist of use cases that could significantly contribute to success. This step may involve iterative refinement after subsequent detailed analysis.

Download the tool

Narrow use cases through a structured vetting process

Formulating the business problems to identify a properly scoped use case is both a science and an art.

Note: An example demonstrating how to use the tool