Case study for the test

The Australian water industry is facing new and old challenges. Population growth in urban centres, climate change, water supply risk and aging infrastructure are just some challenges faced by our water industry. The industry must also consider how it addresses energy costs, emergency response actions, environmental risk, regulatory change, infrastructure security and community relations amidst this increased demand.

Central to addressing these challenges is in improving the maintenance of water and wastewater infrastructure, including the reliability of monitoring and control systems. In addition the $2018$ Australian Industry Standards Water Industry Key Findings paper states that delivering a stable and reliable water supply into the future will require new technologies and systems that are capable of monitoring water resources in real$-$time. The Internet of Things $($IoT$)$ the increasing prevalence of internet connected$-$devices in our world $$ is central to this new capability. As will be other Industry $4\mathrm{.}0$levers$$ like advanced data analysis, machine learning, and cloud computing...

Utilities are constantly undergoing obsolescence upgrades on aging equipment and software systems in order to remain operable. There is no exception for the control and monitoring systems that provide critical alarming, operator control of processes and water assets, and data collection and historian capability. As these systems and equipment age, availability and uptime is reduced and more maintenance may be required. This wastes valuable resources on planned and unplanned downtime and tasks like driving out to sites to perform maintenance.