IBM to help BWSSB manage water distribution network

Supply can be assessed and controlled at the click of a mouse

 IBM will now help the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) manage its complex water distribution systems by harnessing the power of Big Data and predictive analytics technologies.

The computing giant said on Thursday that it will help BWSSB, which supplies water to nearly 800 sq km of Bangalore, to create systems for monitoring and managing its water distribution systems.

“Bangalore’s massive population growth -- from 5.4 million in 2000 to over 10 million -- has put tremendous strain on the City’s water supply and distribution systems. The main sources of water from the Cauvery and Arkavathy rivers are not just sufficient to meet the water demand in the City to a permissible per capita norms. This leads to a big challenge in equitable distribution of available water across the divisions and sub-divisions,” said Sriram Rajan, Executive Director, IBM India/South Asia.

Command Centre

He said IBM has worked with BWSSB to create an operational dashboard, which serves as a “command centre” for monitoring, administering and managing the City’s water supply networks.

The command centre will monitor the waterflow in 284 of 784 bulk flow meters in the City and provide a clear, single view of the functioning of all the bulk flow meter, amount of water transmitted by each of them, the amount of water supplied to individual parts of the distribution system, the level of water in each reservoir or tank, Rajan said.

“Data from every working flow meter will be reported on a single dashboard.”

The solution, developed by the IBM India Software Lab, contains the GIS (Geo Information System) for Bangalore to enable real-time views of flow meters. When an asset (GLR or flow meter) is selected, a user can have a view of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as latest flow rate, total flow in 24 hrs and average total flow over past seven days, as well as the geographical location and time of last update.

“Around 45 per cent of the water supplied by the BWSSB goes unaccounted and implementing this solution helps minimise unaccounted for water by detecting large changes in water flow, through real-time monitoring,” said P N Ravindra, Executive Engineer (New Initiatives and Design Cell), BWSSB.

“Our engineers will be able to assess real-time water supply at the click of a mouse, per asset. This brings a degree of predictability and real time controllability into the water supply for the City.”

BWSSB engineers can now make modifications in the settings of the control valves and get real-time feedback on the changes to the water supply. This is expected to ensure that supply meets their expected goals.