“The report is about 30 pages long and does highlight the range of maturity that we see across water utilities,” said Herrin. “many are a lot farther along in their journey of going digital. We see a lot that emphasizes the different silos that exist within those utilities as well. Whether those are departmental silos of different parts of the organization, not interacting or not getting as much value as they could from each other, or data silos where the systems that are being used aren’t as connected as they could be, to provide the types of insight that could be shared.”

In the report, Herrin said throughout the report there is an emphasis on the fact that there are technical challenges, but then there also are people challenges. The challenges are primarily about getting departments to work together more closely. There are challenges even around, people aging out of their company. Aging infrastructure gets worse over time. Aging staff provide a whole different set of challenges, but also some opportunities. There is a need for utilities to be able to bring their technologies together in a way that’s more open and more flexible so that they can get the things that are more insightful across those different departmental silos.

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