Paradigm - SME Water Ltd

With many complex customers and more frequent company wide demand events, it is often difficult to track exactly where all the water in distribution networks is going. This makes day to day business activities increasingly challenging, even for experienced practitioners. Including, deciding how much water to produce, managing the movement water around networks, and separating leakage from demand.

Paradigm is a forecasting model which solves this problem by providing users with a detailed demand breakdown for hydraulic areas and the ability to predict consumptions and expected burst flows. This prediction is undertaken at District Metered Area (DMA) level, with each DMA’s demand constructed using its component parts. This allows the user to immediately identify internal data sets that do not match the expected net flow profile for an area. Paradigm then supports the interrogation of this information, using intuitive techniques to identify likely causes of these problems.

Our innovative club project is bringing together some of the UK’s top experts together to continually enhance Paradigm and build a solution to meet our industry’s growing challenges.

Want to know more about how Paradigm can help you understand your network better? We’re currently offering free trials to UK water companies.

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Paradigm

DMA audits

DMA level analysis identifies where your base data isn’t fit for purpose, telling you if your areas are breached or you are missing valuable demand insights and billed consumption (including lost revenue!). Using all of your data, not just minimum night flows, our analysis can pick out distinctive patterns and test them against demand events to help you improve your confidence in your DMA’s operations.

Forecasting and tracking

Modelled DMA behaviour is tracked on a weekly basis to capture changes to flow against expected variations. Any discrepancies are categorised as demand increases or leakage, supporting leakage targeting managers in decision making and ensuring reliable weekly reporting to the wider business.

Paradigm

Paradigm Academy

Developed by water company practitioners, the Paradigm Academy combines technical understanding and learning with procedures and best practice. Key features include technical training courses and reference documentation to help analysts understand the insight Paradigm is delivering and take proactive measures to resolve anomalies. The team are also developing best practice documentation to support the investigation of anomalies onsite, including customer metering and demand issues.

Client testimonials

Paradigm boasts many benefits, but why should you take our word for it? Discover what our current and past clients have to say about working with Paradigm and SME Water.

Paradigm identified a seasonal variation in this DMA with the early summer demand increase as well as Ramadan impact. The three allotments highlighted were previously unidentified and after investigation, could well be causing a lot of the seasonal variation. Several private leaks were also located on the back of the analysis. This DMA has had a stubborn night flow for a long time and this work has helped to suggest why and find some of the unaccounted-for water here.

Steve Reeves - Severn Trent Water

SME Water joined our innovation accelerator programme (our “Innovation Lab”) in 2020-21 with the idea of using flow data from our network meters to identify patterns and discern whether the flow is consumption/usage or leakage/losses. Through the work we found the approach (now known as “Paradigm”) could provide great insight, helping us to better understand demand patterns and target our leakage reduction activities more effectively. We continue to work with SME Water and the wider industry in our efforts to achieve a 15% reduction in leakage by 2025 and halve leakage levels by 2050. Innovations, like Paradigm, are critical enablers for achieving these commitments.

John Birkhead - United Utilities

The benefits of Paradigm

Learn just what makes Paradigm a gamechanger in the demand analysis space. Here are a few of the top reasons, for starters.

Leakage targeting

Accurate separation of leakage from demand ensures that leakage targeting resources are sent to investigate leakage in the right DMAs, not to chase customer demand increases.

Lost revenue

UK water companies are losing around 15% of their non-household revenue due to poor billing and network understanding. Paradigm finds the demand and supports investigations.

Accurate reporting

Leakage reporting methods use small samples to derive allowances for your whole company. Validate your reporting data with Paradigm to make sure your sample is representative.

Right solution

With challenging household consumption and leakage targets, make sure that you are putting the right solution into the right place to deliver the benefits you need.

Demand forecasting

Accurate demand forecasting allows you to explain increases in demand and put operational plans in place ahead of time.

Data integrity

Our quick checks tell you if your DMAs are fit for purpose, removing the fog and ensuring you can focus your efforts in the right places.

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