Anglian Water firms up £24m data and digital framework

Anglian Water has added consultancy and software firm Aiimi to its data and digital programme, which is worth £24m over eight years.

The East of England utility company has been working with Aiimi on an “Enterprise Information Management strategy” for six years, with 30 consultants deployed on the engagement. The strategy includes, according to a statement from the supplier, “data, content, business intelligence analytics, and mobile strategies”.

Melissa Tallack, head of data and digital services at Anglian Water, said: “The team from Aiimi are undeniably at the heart of how we’ve driven data and digital capabilities. With Aiimi, the quality of our data strategy – in particular its foresight and progressive data principles and capabilities – means that even six years on, the work remains incredibly relevant to Anglian Water. This is why we are delighted to continue that journey together through the new Data and Digital Services Framework.”

Since January 2018, Anglian Water has also been helping the supplier to develop its proprietary Insight Engine product, which is said to create a “virtual data mesh that discovers and interconnects all information across an enterprise”.

Anglian Water will be using the software and Aiimi’s services to achieve its AMP7 [asset management plan] objectives, as set by Ofwat, the water services regulator. This will entail, said the utility and Aiimi, using artificial intelligence to “improve asset performance, customer information, leakage management, and overall efficiency”.

Anglian Water’s AMP7 business objectives include serving 175,000 new homes, delivering a 16% reduction in leakage, and significantly reducing Anglian Water’s environmental impact by reducing the amount of water it takes from the environment by 84 million litres a day between now and 2025. Water companies are presently in the 2020-2025 AMP period.

Steve Salvin, CEO at Aiimi, said: “Through close ties, we have developed a deep understanding of Anglian Water’s needs – not just from a data and technology perspective, but crucially from a people perspective by embedding teams in their business.”

The framework covers areas from design sprints, hackathons, and UX and UI design to API design, delivery and management, data quality assurance, and augmented data management.

It also mentions the investigation of advanced data technologies such as blockchain and graph database use, as well as analytics and data sciences – including geospatial, IoT, stream and event analytics – NLP, conversational analytics, data modelling, meta and master data management, and continuous intelligence.

The initial contract term is four years with an optional further extension. Suppliers other than Aiimi will take part in the contract.