Galliford Try, one of the UK’s leading construction groups and industrial technology leader Siemens have partnered to accelerate the integration of digital technologies across the lifecycle of water and wastewater projects.
The new model brings together the companies’ complementary solutions and expertise in the water sector to help water companies meet the regulatory, environmental and operational pressures in modernising their infrastructure while reducing time, cost, risk and carbon.
The joint digital tools and sector experience will help water companies solve a range of challenges, such as the ability to identify potential blockages in sewer networks, improve operational efficiency of treatment works and become a net zero industry by 2030.
Due to the early collaboration between Siemens and Galliford Try in advance of future projects, the partnership is estimated to speed up delivery of new tech enabled infrastructure developments significantly.
The partnership will focus on three use cases. Firstly, it will enable optimisation of the wastewater treatment process using mechanistic digital twin technology. The solution optimises energy by up to 20%. It operates in real-time with integration of the control system, or offline and the solution can be offered to support a specific project or offered as a service integrated with sensor and model management.
The second use case reduces storm overflows and pollution incidents. The end-to-end solution, from sensor installation to an application, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to find nine in 10 blockages and automates reporting of overflows in real-time. This is coupled with the opportunity for a UK company to be the first to deploy a proven solution, already operational globally, for catchment level integrated control that reduces overflow volumes from existing infrastructure by 80% in light rain and 19% in heavy rain.
The third use case focuses on reducing the risk and maintenance of sewage pumping stations. This retrofit solution for pumping stations reduces pump blockages by 80% and improves pump performance and risk.
Stephen Slessor, Managing Director of Galliford Try’s Environment business, said: “We know there’s a gap in the market for an infrastructure specialist like us to be bringing the added specialisms from a technology partner into a single offering for the industry.”
“Our goal is to offer the client everything from modelling, simulation and project conception through to building and delivering the real-world outcome for the network – across clean water, wastewater or biosolids through our ‘Source to Sea’ approach. The customer wants value from digital tools, and until now this has meant undertaking a lot of legwork to bring several suppliers together. But our new partnership with Siemens significantly reduces the time investment required by water companies.”
Adam Cartwright, Head of IoT Applications at Siemens plc, said: “Deploying new technologies at pace has risk. Galliford Try has a track record of delivering projects and Siemens brings global technical expertise in water and wastewater. It is the fusion of these two worlds that simplifies and de-risks the deployment of new digital technologies. Building trust and understanding is also an essential step to new business models in the water sector and this partnership allows us to explore customisable solutions like data-as-a-service.”
Galliford Try is one of the largest players in the water sector, working for 11 out of the 12 major water and sewage companies in the UK. As part of its Sustainable Growth Strategy, it has evolved from its capabilities as a traditional design and build contractor to include capital maintenance and asset optimisation which position it uniquely to tackle water clients’ challenges of ageing infrastructure, climate change resilience, funding pressure and an increasingly stringent regulatory environment.
Industrial technology leader Siemens also has a long history of success in the UK water sector. The giant’s hardware, digital tools and software are being deployed by water companies to help combat sewage spills, increase asset life and accelerate the industry to net zero.
