Tallan’s platform for water utilities is an innovative, end-to-end solution for water data management and strategy, backed by Microsoft to modernize and streamline water data analytics and reporting. This platform includes powerful features that integrate disparate data sources, systems, and platforms like ESRI ArcGIS, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics. Once enabled, IT teams can easily automate and streamline analytics that feed reports and dashboards with actionable insights in real time.
Notable features include automated meter reading, water quality monitoring, main break predictions, anomaly detection & alerts, sanitary system overflow, wastewater management, and IoT sensor data integration & analytics. Our clients have selected this solution because of its customization capabilities in meeting the unique needs of the water utility industry. It’s built to deliver on specific processes and priorities.
Tallan + Loudoun Water
Tallan recently completed a project for Loudoun Water, a utility located in Ashburn, Virginia. Loudoun Water provides drinking water and wastewater services to 80,000+ customers in one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. They maintain over 1,483 miles of water distribution pipelines, over 1,234 miles of wastewater collection system pipelines, and an expanding reclaimed non-potable water system. Loudoun Water’s main objective was to develop a modern Business Intelligence capability, leveraging the benefits and scale of Microsoft Azure to support operational data analytics and reporting. To achieve this goal, Loudoun Water’s leadership team tasked Tallan with shaping and implementing a robust solution to prove the concept of the next-generation data platform.
The preliminary engagement began with an assessment of Loudoun Water’s current data estate, data sources, and discussions with leadership. We found the most strategic place to start was analyzing work orders from the Loudoun Water’s SAP system, combined with location data from their Esri GIS. Security was one of Loudoun Water’s most important goals when designing the solution. Tallan’s team helped protect the data with a multi-layered security architecture for total end-to-end protection. These layers included data encryption, access control, authentication (Azure Key Vault) and isolated private networks (private endpoints & Azure Private Links).
Tallan architected the solution to efficiently manage the full SAP work order history using best practices of Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework. While the initial focus was on work orders, the solution was designed so that essential data from SAP, GIS, and other business systems could also be managed. Loudoun Water’s ability to easily scale to accommodate future growth was an important factor in the development of this innovation.
Data pipelines from SAP and GIS sources, previously pulled manually, were then automated for geospatial reporting, providing key insights across 140+ source entities. This design requires very little maintenance of the environment, as new data records are automagically moved from SAP and GIS to the solution on a daily basis. Once proving the functionality and capability of the solution using work orders, Loudoun Water began building out other reports and dashboards to reveal insights across other areas of the business such as purchase orders, budget vs. actual, inventory, projects, and inspections. Click here to see how Tallan completed this engagement!
Tallan’s approach to water utilities can be applied to several facets of urban infrastructure. Our modern data platform for public utilities is a comprehensive solution that provides stream analytics and reporting for public utility data management. This proven solution supports and informs the public utility industry’s analytics, reporting, and strategic growth initiatives across state and local governments.
Schedule a demo today to learn about benefits like cost savings, enhanced operational efficiency, and predictive maintenance for your organization!