Empowering NZ Councils to Deliver Safe, Reliable and Sustainable Water Services

And good afternoon, everyone. I'm John Dean. I'd like to welcome you to our June Brightly Insights webinar. This webinar is all about empowering New Zealand councils to deliver safe, reliable, and sustainable water services. I know how busy things are right now, so we really appreciate you being here. If you've attended one of our webinars before, welcome back. And if it's your first time with us, it's great to have you on board. We hope you find today's session to be both practical and insightful. Now here's a quick look at what we've got in store for you with today's webinar. We'll start with a bit of housekeeping and introduce our speakers. And before reviewing the current state of water in New Zealand, from there, we'll then explore how to build a more reliable foundation, plan with greater confidence, and then use technology to tackle non revenue water. And finally, we'll wrap things up with a q and a. But first, here's some housekeeping. We want this, webinar to be practical, relevant, and genuinely helpful for the for the work that you're doing. So if you have any questions or comments, please put them into the q and a box at any time during this webinar. We've set aside time at the end of the webinar to go through as many questions as we can. And if we don't get to your question, we'll make sure to follow-up with you after the webinar. You can also click the icons on your screen to learn more about today's speakers or to get in touch with us to request a demo. Now let's have a look at who's speaking today. Rebecca Harris is gonna be joining us first, and she's gonna kick off proceedings. Rex Chen will then follow-up. And to end it all, Eol Teigen will also join us from Siemens, to talk about, his topic. Now let's have a look at what those, topics are going to be with this webinar. I wanna start off by talking about the sustainable development goals because by two thousand and thirty, the United Nations has set two key sustainable development goals regarding water. The key goal of sustainable development goal six is to ensure that everyone everywhere has access to safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water. Now what does that mean for water professionals like yourselves? Well, SDG six isn't just about the developing world, which people often think that's the case. It's a shared goal all around the world. And in New Zealand, the water sector faces its own challenges. You've got aging infrastructure, regulatory reform, and, of course, public expectations around service delivery. And that's where your work becomes essential. As water engineers and asset managers, you're not just keeping systems running. You're helping to deliver what the UN recognizes to be a basic human right. But the question we're going to ask today is, are you doing that as efficiently as you can? So let's have a look at the current state of water in New South Wales, and let's look at where things currently stand. New Zealand's water infrastructure is valued at around forty to fifty billion dollars. But over the next thirty years, we're facing a required investment of between one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty five billion dollars. That's a massive gap, and it reflects many years of underinvestment in both capital and maintenance. A big part of the challenge, non revenue water. Right now, New Zealand is losing around one hundred and thirty three million cubic meters of water every year. That's about twenty two percent of total supply. That's not just water down the drain. That's pressure on treatment, energy use, and budgets, and a key contributor to customer charges. And when you look at the infrastructure behind it, much of it was laid in the mid twentieth century. So you have asbestos cement and reinforced concrete pipes that are now failing at increasing rates. If you add in low investment in renewals, often below one and a half percent of asset value, and you've got systems that are more vulnerable to breaks, pressure drops, and contamination risks, we're seeing the impact of that. Regular boiling water alerts. You've got water restrictions, and some are due to insufficient raw water supply or because the existing infrastructure is inadequate to meet demand. There's low network pressure that can affect firefighting. There are nighttime surges leading to main breaks, and there are carbon costs attached to aging and inefficient systems. As the World Health Organization points out, every dollar spent on prevention saves four dollars in health costs and improve productivity. So the case for proactive investment and action is very clear. The question is, how do we close that gap efficiently, affordably, and sustainably? And that is what today's webinar is all about. Now to start us off, I'm very pleased to introduce Rebecca Harris, one of the senior consultants here at Brightly. Rebecca's been with Brightly now for nearly seven years, and in that time, she's built a real passion for asset management. Those of you who already know Rebecca know that she really enjoys working with councils and organizations, and her aim is to help them make smarter decisions and reach their goals. She's kicking things off today with a look at how to build a more reliable foundation, something that's really important in the current environment. Rebecca, the floor is yours. Thank you very much for that introduction, John. Hello, everyone. So I'm gonna start off with a bit of a statement here. Did you know that many New Zealand asset owners are managing their water assets using outdated spreadsheets and paper records? So this isn't just a statement that I pulled out of thin air. According to Wharton New Zealand's twenty twenty one national performance review, many councils across New Zealand are still relying on outdated asset management systems. The review found that approximately thirty percent of water authorities lack comprehensive digital asset management systems, with many still depending on spreadsheets and paper based records. In addition to this, the government's three waters reform program noted that there are inconsistent asset management practices across the country and limited digital maturity in many water utilities, and that there is a need for significant improvement in asset management capabilities. So what can this look like? Many New Zealand councils are currently struggling with fragmented systems, relying on peg based records and reactive maintenance approaches. This makes it nearly impossible to effectively manage water assets or to meet the evolving compliance requirements. As we move forward, building a reliable foundation for water asset management isn't just desirable. It's critical for meeting regulatory demands and community expectations. So fragmented data can look like multiple disconnected databases, scattered Excel spreadsheets, paper based records held in various locations, or siloed departmental systems using legacy software that doesn't communicate with modern platforms. Does this sound familiar to any of you? And bear that question in mind, I'll be asking it again in a minute. So the impact of this on the ground is that asset maintenance teams are working from outdated information. Field crews are lacking real time access to asset histories, which can assist them in making the right decision on the ground. It can cause duplicated data entry across multiple systems and inconsistent asset management across departments, an overall time wasted trying to extract and compile this information together. This can cause increased operational costs due to inefficiencies and a higher risk of emergency repairs. Without the data to back you up, you will experience difficulty in justifying budget requests as you'll have limited ability to forecast future needs and poor visibility across the total cost of asset ownership. And all this will impact your compliance with the water under water done well initiative. Without reliable data and modern digital tools, councils will struggle to demonstrate the accountability, environmental stewardship, and financial responsibility that this initiative demands. So we got a little poll question up here for you now. So, just out of interest to us, how are you guys currently managing your water assets? If you can click on one of the options on the screen, that'd be great. I'll give a few seconds to do that, and then I'll see the results in a minute. Don't be shy. Click on a lot, sir. Perfect. Let's have a look at the results from that then. Okay. It looks like quite a few of you using legacy systems. The majority of you are using all of the above, so really cementing that fragmented, issue of data across all various sources and departments. So how can Brightly help you with this? So Brightly delivers a comprehensive end to end asset management solutions that go far beyond software. During a drawing on decades of industry experience and our dedicated subject matter experts, we have organizations like yours build and maintain a reliable complete asset register that serves as their infrastructure backbone. Our integrated digital platform powered by GIS technology creates a single source of truth where users can effectively track asset condition, criticality, and performance in real time. This unified approach eliminates the complexity of fragmented systems, enabling organizations to visualize their entire asset portfolio and make data driven decisions based on accurate current information. But our commitment extends beyond technology. We commitment extends beyond technology. We partner with our clients through every step of the asset management journey. We provide digital asset management plans, organizational maturity assessments, and customized processes and workflows. This digital transformation creates a single source of truth for all asset related activities. By eliminating the inefficiencies of fragmented systems, councils can make more informed decisions about infrastructure investments and maintenance priorities. The result is better service delivery, improved asset longevity, and more efficient use of public resources, all while maintaining strict compliance with regulatory requirements. And to support this in the field, the platform also has a mobile application. This application ensures that teams can access and update asset information anywhere, anytime, streamlining workplace and improving response times. The operational benefits are substantial. By enabling proactive mange maintenance strategies, councils can significantly extend asset life cycles and reduce operational costs. Real time monitoring and predictive analytics help prevent costly emergency repairs while optimized maintenance scheduling ensures efficient resource allocation. This shift from reactive to proactive management not only improve service reliability, but also delivers better value for money. From a regulatory and governance perspective, Bridle's platform provides a comprehensive solution that aligns perfectly with the local water done well requirements through its interactive multilevel dashboard system. At an at the executive level, the platform delivers high level insights into system performance, financial metrics, and compliance status, enabling strategic decision making and risk management. The platform's dynamic dashboards empower local control and accountability by providing water authorities with detailed asset insights and performance metrics. Managers can effectively monitor team performance, track budgets, and make data driven decisions about resource allocation and maintenance operations. This granular control supports transparent governance and strengthens accountability to look to local communities. Our platform can also help you navigate the Talanton ROI's stringent requirements by maintaining detailed digital records of asset condition and providing re real time compliance monitoring. This means that you can shift from manual tracking and reactive reporting to proactive compliance management, ensuring you're not just meeting regulatory requirements, but exceeding them. The system's integrated approach allows perfectly with key risk management and asset performance indicators, enabling councils to demonstrate their commitment to safe drinking water, environmental protection, and efficient service delivery, Providing a single source of truth for all asset related activities, Riley's solution helps you build a reliable foundation needed for regulatory compliance and the operational excellence in today's, complex water services environment. So what you're looking at here is the future of water asset management, a fully connected intelligent system that transforms how we monitor and maintain our critical infrastructure. We will design an efficient solution that is powered by modern technology, twenty plus years of rich data and insights, and sophisticated models and intelligence. With this, you can extend asset life cycles, reduce operational costs, improve your service reliability, and enhance your regulatory and compliance. You can increase your operational efficiency and explore cross council collaboration opportunities, helping you build a reliable foundation for the future. But what does that actually mean in the real world? Here are some real life scenarios and examples of how implementing an enterprise asset management system can help. During critical infrastructure events, effective communication becomes a cornerstone of successful incident management. An integrated asset management system transforms how organizations communicate, enabling real time alerts, coordinated response efforts, and transparent stakeholder updates. This means maintenance teams can be instantly deployed with precise location data, and decision makers can access live status updates. The system's ability to facilitate clear, timely communication across all levels. So from the field crews to the executive management team to the public turns fragmented information into coordinated action. For the proactive approach, data driven decision making revolutionizes infrastructure management by transforming historical data into predictive insights. By analyzing past performance patterns and identifying emerging trends, organizations can spot potential issues before they become critical failures. This proactive approach enables strategic intervention at the right time in the right place with the right resources. Rather than reacting to failures, maintenance teams can prevent them, It's significantly reducing emergency repairs, optimizing costs, and ensuring more reliable service delivery. It's the difference between fixing problems and preventing them from occurring in the first place. And my colleague Rex will be giving you far greater insight into this in his segment next. To elevate your asset management, smart sensors and IoT devices act as the eyes and ears of your asset management system, providing real time insight into asset performance. By integrating these devices with your EAM platform, you transform static asset data into dynamic actionable intelligence. This combination enables immediate alerts to potential issues, automates maintenance triggers, and provides the data foundation needed for truly predictive asset management. It's about enhancing your EAM investment with live operational insights that drive better, faster decisions. My colleague EOL will be taking you through some of the benefits and options around this a bit later on. And all of these scenarios should have been particularly familiar to you, as they've all impacted New Zealand in recent years. Oh, bear with. Sorry. So let's make that start building that foundation today. I'm gonna pass over next to my, colleague Rex, who's gonna be taking you through planning with confidence. Rex, over to you. Thank you, Becky. So important, I think, to have good practices, a centralized system around managing how how, you know, we keep and update our asset data. It gives us a lot more confidence in our data, which I think also gives us a lot more confidence in our planning. And, really, that's the topic I wanted to discuss today. Right? Planning with confidence. To set the scene, earlier, John covered during the opening about that huge gap. Right? A hundred and twenty to a hundred and eighty five million a billion, right, of a of a gap that we need to address. And I'm sort of coming at it from a I'm a slightly different angle. It is a huge gap, but I'm seeing it also as a huge wave of renewals that's coming slowly towards us, or some might argue that we're already at at the foot or already at the top of that wave. Right? And this is converging from a few different angles. The first one is aging infrastructure. This picture of Queen Street in Auckland is taken in the nineteen fifties. And around the same time, we started to lay many of our asbestos cement and reinforced concrete pipes. That was the fifties throughout to the seventies. And these pipes last about fifty to seventy years. So, really, we're on the top of a huge wave of renewals, if I go back to that analogy. And it's another reason why we're seeing a lot more pipe bursts that we need to respond to react it. Another angle that's converging on us quite uniquely to New Zealand is a source water quality. Right? There's a high animal to people ratio in New Zealand. There's more livestock waste that could easily flow into our water sources, especially following heavy rains and heavy floods. That becomes an issue that can overwhelm our already aging treatment plants, which results in all these frequent oil notices in in some of our regions. And finally, there are competing agendas. Right? We have a limited and constrained budgets, resource. There are asset classes other than water, like parks, roads, libraries. A lot of these assets are what I would consider, like, a bit more tangible than water assets. In other words, their their benefits to us, to the community when they're looking at, oh, what do we want our councils to focus on spending on. It's a bit more obvious compared to water assets, which are predominantly underground. So, really, you see this huge wave of renewals from aging infrastructure that converges with these other issues that's really putting a lot of pressure on our situation at hand. And this wave, right, it can it can feel overwhelming at times. If all my assets are in need of replacement, there simply and there simply isn't enough money to go around, or where do I even start? And this is when it helps to start to look beneath the wave, or call it, look underneath the wave and really look at the consequence of failure and the risks, the impacts that are held within our assets and not just look at our assets, from a physical asset or physical condition itself. So what's underneath this renewal wave? Well, first of all, you have things like a contamination risk. Earlier, we talked about the asbestos cement pipes, right, whether it's from asbestos fibers or for reinforced concrete pipes that might release minerals and metals into the water supply, or create entry points for other contaminants like animal waste. There are contamination risk. Right? And the consequence and likelihood of that risk is not equal in all assets and around all areas. There's also the factor around economic cost, right, not just to acquire, dispose, and and renew our assets, but also things like leaked water, which is something EOL will touch on more. But, right, leak water still costs money to treat and pump, and people are still paying from that for that. We also have an environmental resilience factor. Aging pipes are more likely to compound the damage and and failures from natural disasters and really make things worse during one of our extreme events. And, also, when we have aging assets that require reactive maintenance, it really is an inefficient use of capital and resources when we're responding to a pipe burst. But on top of that, there's also the impact around public perception. And, again, that's not equal in all assets. Something I didn't know about was also, the fire risk. You know, I only found that out during I'm researching around, this topic for this webinar as well is that there's actually a lower network pressure from our leaking pipes. Actually hinders the ability for our firefighters, to respond. On top of all this, we have, rust and credibility issues when it comes to not, I guess, well maintaining and managing a water infrastructure, right, which in our social media connected world is also linked to tourism. Four point four percent of New Zealand's GDP and one in nine New Zealanders' jobs relate to tourism. So for all these aspect, you can see you can see three things. First of all, there's a lot more downstream impacts than that meets the eye, And a lot of these are not immediately tangible the deeper we look. And number two, right, not all of these impacts are equal for all assets. In other words, not all assets are valued the same. Right? The same pipe with the same condition might hold more risk or less risk depending on its location in the network and the purpose that it serves. So the third point I wanna get across is the answer to the challenge of, well, how do we confidently prioritize our renewals and ride such an insurmountable wave of renewals is to actually dive underneath and really bring to surface some of these risks, these impacts, and these costs that aren't immediately tangible. And to do that, right, for our entire life cycle of asset. So in other words, right, for us as asset managers, the equation for us to solve when we wanna plan with confidence is really how do we maximize value of our assets over its life cycle. And by value here, I mean, you know, value beyond the traditional service levels, the performance metrics, and the asset evaluations. Let's look underneath and look at, well, how much is it costing me to maintain these assets that are in poor condition, including reacting to failures? Right? How much is it costing me to acquire or dispose these assets, and and we actually delay some of that? If we do so, what are some of the risks that we're holding? Right? So these are all the things that are underneath that way. What's really gonna be impacted as a consequence of failure? Right? We also have our major renewals and upgrades. How do we right time that? So we are making sure that's, you know, we're really getting the most value from our renewals. And finally, what's also underneath that wave, all that environmental and community impacts is not so often discussed about when we talk about prioritizing assets or investments in our asset. So what does value what do these areas of value look like over an asset's life cycle? Well, if we look through an asset's life cycle, when an asset degrades over time, so is its service level. There are different treatments and interventions that we can do, which have their own costs and effects, and they all change the asset's life cycle value. If you're, if you have an asset that's more towards its end of life, you might have a limited amount of treatment options. You might only be able to replace it. But if we treat some of our assets earlier, it could potentially look at some renewal options instead. And also, as our assets degrade, right, the cost of maintenance is increasing, and so is that likelihood of failure. And this is what's triggering those risks underneath that wave. The later you treat that risk, right, even if an asset doesn't fail, you're still holding on to that risk for a longer period of time, and that's still a negative value on our assets, negative value on our assets' life cycle. So our approach here really is we want to maximize the value of risk life cycle, and the best approach to do that is to strategically look forward and really consider, well, what are all the different possibilities of the future, and how do I consciously move towards that? Which really, to me, is at its is at the core of strategic asset management. Right? To me, it's about making conscious decisions with our current assets and our current strategy. To say that again, strategic asset management to me, making conscious decisions with our current assets and our current strategy. And what I mean by that, conscious decision is evidence. You have a decision that you know very well the downstream impacts of, and then you consciously accept those impacts when you make that decision. For example, if I change my budget, how is that going to affect the level of service that I can provide? If I shift my priorities, right, how might that impact the maintenance cost in my network? Well, if I focused, for example, on risk, and reducing risk, how might that increase the backlog of work, in in other assets that might have lower consequence of failures. So none of these thing elements or outcomes can be considered in isolation, and the strategic asset management tool can really help us see, well, with evidence, all these different versions of the future and enable us to consciously pick one of those futures and go down that path. And also to review at different points in time, well, also and so so much has changed, you know, whether it's, weather conditions, whether it's, other assets that we've introduced. How do we keep making that conscious decision as we continue down this journey? Right? And through the process of strategic asset management, what we can typically help with answering or or we can typically help with is also answer questions like, well, what assets do we have? How do they degrade? And how can I manage, that degradation? If they do degrade and fail, what are some of the consequences? If we look at our strategy, right, what are all the different options that we can take there, all the different versions of the future, how much should we actually budget? What level of service do I aim for? All those risks and consequence that I looked at throughout my assets, how much do I actually accept? And then once you arrive at those conscious decisions, really, it is about the different what if scenarios of that future. Right? How do I find that sweet spot of spending? That point where I'm not under delivering on my services, but also not overspending to a point where I'm reaching diminishing returns. And then, also, how do I defend my plan with with confidence? Right? How do I tell my asset stories in a really compelling way and really bring all these stakeholders on board and unite everyone behind the strategy that we're taking? What if something unexpected happened? What if I wanna change something? All of this is, at the end of the day, what we are or what we're able to derive from a conscious decision after looking at all these different possibilities of the future. So one of the good examples, of arriving at conscious decisions is how one on water was able to find twenty three percent of their CapEx spent over a ten year renewal program through better optimizing some of these decisions, and now they can confidently spend it in some of the other areas. This will be part of and the info pack that we provide to everyone as well, so you'll see this use case. And remember, right, like, one of these impacts underneath the wave is, the impact of economic cost that I mentioned earlier. And that comes from leakages. It comes from nonrevenue water. And this is where I leave you in a good hands of my colleague EOL to take you through more detail on this topic. Right? Over to you, Eol. Okay. Thank you, Rex, and hello, everyone. So in this section, we'll we'll go through how we can leverage technology and in particular, artificial intelligence to reduce non revenue water. And I think as as many of you already know, non revenue water refers to water that has been treated and distributed by utilities but is lost before reaching consumers. And this loss can result, from leakages or from commercial losses such as unauthorized consumption, so illegal connections, or from inaccuracies in in metering and billing. But to start, I'd like to ask you a question. So there's gonna be a poll that comes up, and the question is, globally, what percentage of treated water do you think is lost as non revenue water? So I'll give you ten to twenty seconds to answer that. Okay. Couple more seconds. Okay. Okay. So most of you have answered thirty percent, which is actually correct. So globally, thirty percent of water is lost as non revenue water, which is quite significant. And while this number may vary from, region to region or country, it still highlights the global scale, of the problem. So bringing bringing this a bit closer to home and looking at broadly the challenges of non revenue water, in New Zealand, one hundred and thirty three million cubic meters of water is lost annually. To To put that in perspective, that that's enough to meet the consumption needs of one point six million people or roughly one third of New Zealand's population. So that's a huge volume of expensively treated water going to waste, which has major financial implications. But beyond the immediate financial costs, nonrevenue water is increasingly a sustainability concern as it undermines financial resilience, makes it harder to meet regulatory compliance, and also puts long term water security at risk, particularly in the context of climate change and growing urbanization. This is why addressing non revenue water is a key part of meeting the objectives of the local water done well framework. However, addressing non revenue water itself is quite complex and costly, particularly when trying to scale solutions across an entire network. Fortunately, advances in technology such as AI and cloud computing, along with standardized interfaces and lower communication costs, are shifting the economics of leakage management and making it more viable and cost effective to tackle non revenue water at scale. And building on these, technologies, Siemens has, two key solutions to help tackle the challenges of non revenue water. So there's Siwa Leak Finder, which is used to address, physical, leakages in water distribution networks. And the meter management solution is used to address commercial losses. So these could be arising from illegal connections or inaccuracies in metering and billing. So in the next couple of slides, I'll focus on, the the leak finder. And just sort of understand how this all works. So the the leak finder leverages data that already exists in the water network. So this includes sensor data like flow meters, pressure sensors, tank levels, and so forth. It also draws on metering data, whether from smart meters or conventional meters. Optionally, you can also integrate, geographic information systems and hydraulic models if these are available. All of this data is then fed into, the AI engine, which can either run-in the cloud or on premise. The system is then able to detect and localize leakages. But beyond that, it can also identify fifteen other types of events, such as pressure drops, sensor faults, asset failures, and so forth. And you also get dashboarding, KPIs and automated reporting to help you improve visibility and informed decision making. Additionally, if you incorporate a hydraulic model, the system can be used not just for detecting events, but also for planning. So you can use it to simulate different operational or investment scenarios to help you decide where to focus your limited resources for the greatest impact. And we'll have a look at that a bit later on. So water networks are typically divided into district meter areas or DMAs, and the leak finder can work across small to large DMAs. So for small DMAs, which are those that that have less than twenty, kilometers of pipe, single flow meter at the DMA inlet is usually sufficient for the AI to detect leakages at that DMA level. But for larger DMA's, we need more granularity and that's where integrating hydraulic models and placing additional flow meters within the DMA becomes important. This allows the AI to localize leaks down to the pipe level to within an area of two hundred meters and leak sizes as small as zero point two five liters per second. The question then becomes how many flow meters are needed and where should they be installed to achieve the desired level of accuracy? And we can answer exactly that using AI and hydraulic modeling. So if you take a look at this water network. You can see DMA2 is a large zone with two inlet flow meters that you can see as the blue dots. And by combining a hydraulic model of the network with AI, we we can simulate virtual leaks and test different sensor placements within DMA2. And this will help us find the optimal number and locations for additional flow meters. The additional flow meters that are needed are shown as the green dots there. And these are then used to define virtual DMAs, which are marked as the, dotted circles. And these allow us to narrow down leaks to a much smaller sections within a larger zone. And of course, the more flow meters the more flow meters we place, the smaller the area we can pinpoint to. But the good thing about this approach is that it helps you determine upfront how many flow meters you need and where you need to place them to achieve your desired accuracy before committing to any capital investment. Okay, so just to give you a sense of of the UI, so you get an overview of the events that have been automatically detected and classified by the AI, such as leaks, flow deviations and sensor faults. If you click on an event, it will display further information. So in this case, we're looking at a leakage event and you can see the forecasted values against the actual values. And you can then further also access the leak location which get marked in red so you can see the pipes get highlighted in red and this then allows you to quickly identify where to investigate for for the leakages. There's also an asset manager that you can utilise and this helps you assess pipe risk based on factors like material, age, pressure as well as failure history. So you can then prioritize which pipes you need to replace. And if you've got an hydraulic model, you can you can actually use the hydraulic model to also assess the pipes criticality. So how many people would be affected if that pipe were to fail? And by combining risk and criticality, you can then prioritize, pipe replacements to maximize the value of your investment. So in short, for a given budget, it ensures that you're replacing the right pipes at the right time. Okay, so to wrap up, I just wanted to have a look at one reference. You can find the full details through the QR code. You can also access other references from there. So looking at this reference for a major water utility who were already performing relatively well with just ten percent water loss, But they wanted to go further by targeting smaller leaks, which were difficult to detect, and also made up the bulk of their water loss. And so by implementing the leak finder, they're able to identify leaks as small as zero point two five liters per second across their five thousand kilometer network. And that led to a reduction in their water loss from ten percent to around eight percent. So that's a reduction of around twenty percent. Okay. And with that, that brings the end of my section. So I'm gonna hand over back to John who's gonna go through the conclusions with us. Thanks very much for that, Eol. That was fantastic. Thank you. Now before we go into the q and a, let's have a a quick review of the key points from our team. Now Rebecca spoke about New Zealand's evolving water management challenges and said that Brightly offers councils a comprehensive solution that transforms outdated, frank fragmented systems into a unified digital platform. She said that, that enables real time asset monitoring, regulatory compliance with water done well initiatives, and improved communication during critical events. She said it also helps councils to optimize resource management and build the reliable foundation needed for sustainable water infrastructure management. Now Rex talked about the need to move confidently towards smarter evidence based preventative planning. He said that we need to look underneath the wave to prioritize asset investment beyond traditional age and condition. He said we should be considering all the risks, sustainability factors, and community outcomes when prioritizing asset investment. He said it's about modeling all possible versions of the future so you can consciously decide on the path ahead. And finally, EOL talked about the need to meet the goals of local water done well. He said we need to embrace technology and leverage advanced technologies like AI. He said that's essential to accurately target water loss, reduce non revenue water, and ensure smarter, more sustainable service delivery. Now that's what the team had to say, and we now want to hear what you have to say in the question and answer session that's coming up now. So, if you haven't done so yet, please put your questions or comments into the q and a box that you see on screen. So please make sure you put in your questions. Doesn't matter what type of question it is. We'll give our do our best to answer it. And if we don't get to your question, we'll make sure to follow-up with you after the webinar. You can also click the icons on your screen to learn learn more about today's speakers as well or to get in touch with us. Now onto our, first question. Ewell, what what is a given that you've just been speaking, what is a good entry point for implementing AI in water distribution networks so you you get a quick win and you demonstrate early value? So for people who might be a bit, you know, concerned about jumping in boots and all, what's what's a quick win you can get? I think I think it would be I think a good starting point would be to, look at it at the DMA level. And for that, you only need a single flow meter at the DMA inlet. So with just a single flow meter at each DMA, you can then use the AI to detect leakages at the at the DMA level. Right? So you can start by getting a heat map, for example, of leak prone areas within your water distribution network, identify zones that have high leakage rates, and then start to focus your efforts on that so you can then further investigate those areas. You can maybe start off by, you know, know, developing a hydraulic model or, installing additional flow meters within that section, and testing the technology, understanding how it works, and then taking that stepwise approach, to then scale it out across the, the entire network. So I think that would be I think that would be a good starting point to demonstrate early value, but then also a good stepwise approach to to start implementing it across the entire network. And in terms of the kinds of wins, you know, looking at the technology you have, what kind of wins have you identified that can be achieved early, and what kind of savings are you seeing? I think in term in terms of early wins, so we we've got references where we've identified over a hundred thousand events over a, I think, three or four month period. So by installing, you know, a couple you can start to identify different events. So, you know, things like sensor faults, asset failures. Sometimes there's false events as well. So all of those can be detected with the AI, not just the leakage. But I think early on, you can start to get those benefits. And then as you start to build it out, you can start to localize those events, those leakages to, as I said, localize it to within a two hundred meter area, and also leakage rates as as low as zero point two five liters per second. So those are some of the, in terms of numbers that we've achieved in across other projects. Thanks for that. Now, Rebecca, if I can turn to you. On looking at one of the answers earlier on, a lot of people are using legacy systems. What makes Brightly different from other asset management solutions that are trying to help digitize and move this, sector forward? What's different with Brightly? Well, so not only does Brightly offer a brilliant asset management, system, we also have the backing of a globally renowned company in Siemens. So this ensures that we have access to the, latest and greatest research and development and, of course, the funding involved to, instigate that into our software. Not only that, but the people who work here at Brightly are truly some of the most passionate and knowledgeable in the industry. So it's not just, you know, we don't, you know, set and forget. We don't sort of set you up and leave you to to your own devices. We truly care about helping you move forward and succeed your end goals. So we are there for your entire of your asset management journey and achieving everything that you want to do in the future as well. Now, Rebecca, you're you're quite passionate about getting solutions into businesses. I know that's what you're well known for. What are your favorite solutions that you've helped to put in place or Brightley has helped to put into place in the water sector? Oh, that's a difficult one. I mean, the case study that Raxt has got with one on water, I would definitely recommend that all of our listeners, go ahead and read about that one. We've helped many sort of water utilities and water authorities, set up not only asset management systems, but also that predictive analytical software as well. So that's truly sort of the whole picture. You've got your information on the ground on your current state. You can use that to inform and react and, get your future and predictive analysis out there to help you plan for, you know, between two and a hundred years our scenario modeling goes into, to really help you get those long term financial planning, private policies in place as well. And how easy if if someone is not that computer savvy, how easy is it to get across these kind of digital systems? Very easy. So I myself actually started as an apprentice, at the age of seventeen in my council, and I joined the asset management suite. So I've literally done it from the ground up. I've been a, user of the system to assist administrator to an implementer, and I am not technical in the slightest. So, if I can do it, anyone can get a handle on a technical, digitalized system. Now you're talking face to face with a a lot of people in in water utilities and councils, in different countries. What kind of change do you notice? Once they start using a system like this, how quick is that adoption curve of this kind of technology? Once people can see the real benefit of using a system, it it tends to garner quite a lot of momentum. So once you're from your end users to your, you know, field users up through to exact management, everyone needs to be able to see the benefits of using a digitalized system. And it's all about telling that story, you know, selling the the change management aspect, which can be difficult in some businesses. If you handle your change management well, the momentum is quick and the results are even better. You know, from operational savings through to getting more funding from grants because you have more that holistic view of the data that you can see. You can tell your story. You can sort of say, okay. This is what our current state is. However, with this injection of budget or funding or whatever it happens to be, this is where we could be in the future. This is how we're gonna continue to deliver a good and reliable service. And on the flip side of that, if you don't have that injection of funding or or money or whatever it is, this is where we're going to be. And it's that sort of warning of, you know, we need to be able to, provide in the future. Otherwise, failure is imminent. We've got a very good question here, which I'll I'll throw to whichever person wants to answer it. But it says each water entity will need to integrate with other legacy systems. And as we know, forty six percent of people are using legacy systems. What systems is Brightly all already integrated with? I think that's a very good question. So with operational systems that you're using today, we integrate with, GIS systems, financial admit systems, and CRM systems, so customer records management. That's what sort of data that you are currently using across council. So you've got that view from, you know, the the geospatial view and the GIS system through to the customer requests coming in from the CRM system and then pushing that all the way back up to your finance system as well. So in your finance system, you've got how you're tracking against your budgets, financial asset management, and through to asset valuations as well. So what is the value of your asset network, and what is that gonna cost you to replace it? So what you're replacing values to. Now another question here is yeah. Does anyone else, in the team want to, answer that question about integration? I think Becky covered it quite well. And I think also I mean, we usually meet councils wherever they are. Right? So some of our our from going from very paper based to spreadsheet based to legacy systems to having their own sort of access database. Some of it does require a bit of custom works simply because how disparate the data is. And that's where we would, yeah, typically come in with, either some sort of, integration solution or we will look at, a way to, migrate a lot of the the data across. And also for things like planning. Right? Some of the the planning tools, for example, the the one that WADA WADA uses with brightly Predictor, it's really about joining a lot of these disparate sources in one place. And especially when you're doing planning, that's more of a cyclical thing. You do it maybe once a year. At max, once once a a a quarter. You only really need to look at, okay. Well, where am I at in this point in time? What information do I wanna bring in? What kind of models do I wanna be be running to to sort of look at these different versions of the future, and then go from there? So, really, it is, quite flexible. We have a question. I'm not sure who who wants to sorry. You go? Okay. Just so I just wanna give another question here. We've got, does none revenue water loss include toilet water flushing and irrigation use? Who would like to answer that one? I think So so it I'll go, Joel. You do it? No. You go, Hendrix. Well, typically, no. It it doesn't include because those are, when you flush water, flush your toilets, or use it for irrigation, it's legitimately billed. When when we're talking about nonrevenue water, we're talking about real losses that that comes from leakages. And a question for you, Rex. A a lot of our data, you know, in the water sector is quite out of date. And for some assets, you know, there's only very little data at all. How can people plan confidently with the data they have even though it may not be, you know, fully in place or out of date? So I think in in the in the process of of planning even or in the process of of performing strategic asset management, it is also an uplift in the overall maturity of of, I would say, the organization's asset management capabilities. And what I mean by that is, you'll find that not all data is equally valuable. Right? Like earlier, I said, not all assets are are made equal. Not all data comes equal as well. So you might find that you're currently, just for example, collecting twenty data elements across, all your asset classes. And when it comes time to planning, you realize that only six data elements out of the twenty really moved the needle in terms of shifting how decisions need to be made. Right? Mhmm. And that really gives you sort of a path of, okay. What data do I have that is really valuable, and I wanna make sure I keep collecting it so it's more up to date? What data do I have that I'm collecting that isn't actually used as much in terms of decision making and I can collect less of? And also what data that I'm not collecting, that that I can start to invest in, and and I can start to actually build a business case around it. Another angle I wanted to to tackle this question at is is to give a bit more concrete examples. Right? A lot of, councils that we work with, some of it them have asset data that is, really outdated as they would say. Like, some asset data is more fresh. That's because the cyclical nature of these asset revalves that you might have some that are three year old, some that are from last month, and you need to make decisions on that. And it feels quite sort of imperfect. And, also, there are some councils that don't even have condition data. Right? You're not even especially for water pipes, you can't even go and run and see it unless you take it up. So you only have an install date and something to estimate off. And what we do is we always try and simulate the degradation from the point where you're capturing the data. Or if you don't have condition, we go all the way to the install date and simulate it towards today's date so that every asset is on the same baseline of, of, point in time. And then from that point on, right, you get a much more, accurate view where every asset is is pursuing to be in this point in time when you start to actually look into the future, right, to actually be able to find those, those differences in how assets are valued. You wanna make sure that they start on the same baseline. But, yeah, quite a few ways we we tackle that. I was very interested to see the number of people answering who are still using paper, which is a an ancient technology. And and it, paper imposes inefficiencies onto the businesses and organizations that use it, especially in a business kind of situation. How easy is it, when Brightly go in and sit down with the council to work out what they can do together, how easy is it for you to organize for the council to get their paper based information digitized so they can get take advantage of digitization and and efficiency improvements from that? That's a that's a good question, John. With the digitization of paper records, there is a lot of software these days that can help you with that. The first question that council should be asking themselves is, do we actually need that data? Because a lot of paper records have a lot of data that was collected for the sake of collecting data, and a lot of it's not even relevant. It's out of date, or it's just not going to be used. So first question we would probably post them is, do you need that data, and do you need all of it? And if the answer is yes, that they do need the data, then they will have to go through a digitization process. Like I said, there's quite a few softwares out there these days that can help you sort of take a paper based form and put it into, like, some kind of readable format, so a PDF or a a word format, essentially. So that's the way I would go about it. When when Brightly sort of engage with a new client, one of the first things we do is we ask them, what is their to be. So where are you right now, and where do you want to be? And it's that to be that we work towards with our clients to work out where they may have gaps missing in their knowledge or in their data, or have, you know, showstoppers like we can't access the data because it's held in some locked room somewhere and, you know, paper based, all that kind of stuff. So that's how we engage and sort of work around the issues that they may be experiencing and hope you find a way forward, to be in a good place in the future. Final question before we wrap up for the webinar. One question here is for the councilors that may not have extensive budgets, how can Brightly Solutions offer value in those situations? Who would like to take that? I'll start, and then I'll probably pass to Rex to finish. So, as Rex said earlier, we I'll start with what you've got. So that's where we would meet those councils sort of, at where they're at right now, and just sort of go over and view what they can achieve with what they've got available. And that may be sort of a few different options. Say, okay. You've got option a, b, and c, and then prioritizing those options, going forward. So you don't have to do everything right here, right now. You can plan across, you know, several years, and, you know, get to where you want to be in five, ten years' time. There's no point running before you can walk, and there's no point letting perfect be the enemy of good. If you can get into a good place of what you've got right now, you should go ahead and do that. And then in terms of the software that we've got to offer, I know, Rex, you wanna talk about the difference of funding scenarios you can run? Yeah. And but before that, I think, one of the the key things that I think we do quite differently as an organization is while we are a software company, there's also a very heavy services arm because we work with a lot of councils that are quite regional and quite I would say they're they're very lean in their budgets, very lean in their teams. And for them, we have the one we can, of course, we can implement software for them to drive themselves. Oftentimes, what they found really helpful is that Riley has the infrastructure or asset management expert employee in your organization. And, instead of, the the regional council driving the software or driving we would do that for them and provide the outcome as needed so that then it becomes something that you only follow-up on as a service whenever you do come around to your planning periods. And that's also when a lot of people are really stretched. Right? All these different decisions need to be made, and all this data needs to be collected in such a short time. But just the fact that we have that infrastructure in place, I think, gives also a lot of larger organizations a peace of mind, in that in there as well in in in the sense that your whole asset management program or one particular asset class isn't sort of dependent on one or two, employees that might get sick, that they might leave, might go to another organization. You have that infrastructure in place to quickly swap, swap, capability in and have that redundancy in place. And I think that itself, gives a lot more flexibility for councils regardless of size. And yeah. Well, thank you for that. Now, in wrapping up, I do wanna thank, Rebecca, Rex, and EOL for, their insights today. We hope you enjoy today's session, and thanks for attending. Now if we didn't get to your question, we will reach out afterwards to you to get, to provide a response to you. If you have any further questions, though, please use the icons, to send them through to us or get in touch with us directly. We'd like to hear what topics you'd like to, have covered in a future webinar as well. So please use the q and a function to send us your ideas now. And a link to this recording will be sent to all of you, so please keep an eye on your inbox for that and for future webinars. I'm John Dee on behalf of Brightly. Many thanks for joining us today. Thank you.