12. Spatial Informatics in Water Supply Management: The Case of Mariborski Vodovod

Mariborski vodovod is a public company located town Maribor in Slovenia. Maribor is the second biggest town in Slovenia and is a centre of its northeast region. The company is owned by municipalities in the region, and its main activity is the collection, purification and distribution of sufficient quantity and quality of drinking water for more than 166 thousand of customers – users – which is about 11% of the Slovenian population. They have the largest water distribution network in Slovenia. The distribution network consists of over 1615 km of water supply pipeline system and over 260 facilities. They operate ten water sources and some smaller reservoirs which provide the water to their customers. Annually they pump 13,7 million cubic meters of drinking water which supplies 16 municipalities. Their largest water source and pumping station is Vrbanski plato which provide 760 litres per second of fresh water. This location has natural as well as technical protection and is irreplaceable for supplying water.

Their complementary activities are manufacturing, servicing and sale of water meters, construction and assembly work on the water supply network, engineering projects and technical consultancy in the field of water supply. They are also issuing approvals for the project documentation and construction documentation. They are also carrying construction and building works for connecting customers to the public water supply network.

They are a public company, and as such, they operate as a non-profit organisation according to their mission of providing quality drinking water supply. Their strategy is to be a modern and efficient public company. One of their very important goals is to implement all aspects of the modern way of business including environmental friendliness and sustainability and also with a high level of social responsibility. In all business decisions, they include the environmental management issues in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. Their digital transformation orientation and implementation of e-business are focused in: more efficient core operations of water supply, nature prevention, user-friendliness to their customers, and improved connectivity with their stakeholders (owners and partners). With E-procurement in the online ordering processing, they implemented paperless procurement of materials and services. They have implemented e-invoicing so more, and more of their customers and partners are receiving e-invoices to pay them with a »single click«.

Their Facebook profile serves as very effective communication tools for forwarding relevant, up-to-date information regarding water supply to customers and is also offering insight into their operational environment and activities. Their website is mainly used as a communication tool and a platform where the company information is published. Their web site also offers special services for blind people and for people with eye-difficulties providing them information about the latest news and also information about invoice details as voice messages.

They are one of the most successful public companies in Slovenia. They are recipients of the European certificate of business excellence; their annual report is the »Best Annual Report among other organisations in 2012 in Slovenia«. They are the first company to receive the award from the Slovenian Chamber of Communal Economy. By receiving the Family-Friendly Company certificate, they proved that they follow the principle that a successful career and family life are not incompatible. Therefore they implement the solutions and activities to enable the coordination of work and family life of employees. They also received several Slovenian awards for social responsibility »HORUS«. Thus they have proved that they are aware of social responsibility regarding the environment, their employees, their business partners and general society.

They know how important it is to raise the awareness of citizens and the wider public about saving drinking water. Therefore they associate themselves with educational institutions and particularly for the younger generation. They prepare lectures about how to deal efficiently with drinking water and how important it is that the environment near water sources remains clean.

In the area where Mariborski vodovod supplies citizens with drinking water, they placed 33 outdoor drinking fountains where passers-by can refresh themselves on hot days with cold and tasty drinking water. Because animals need water too, we also added drinking fountains for pets to the same of the fountains.

Their drinking water supplies are under constant surveillance. Both, the internal and external microbiological and chemical analyses are carried out, which ensures that safe drinking water reaches the user’s tap. With the careful selection of suppliers and installing quality materials, they try to ensure customers satisfaction. Of course, they also conduct regular maintenance of water supply facilities and the water supply network, and they are trying to raise awareness among the general public how to deal with drinking water efficiently.

Water supply is among the most important and crucial utilities delivered by countries. EU Directive 114/2008 defines water supply infrastructure as »critical infrastructure« of EU. Legislation in Slovenia follows these guidelines and further defines approaches and procedures regarding critical infrastructure operation and maintenance. This includes requisites for uninterrupted supply of healthy drinking water 365 days and 24 h daily.

Information infrastructure has crucial role In fulfilment of these requirements while the collection, purification and distribution of sufficient quantity and quality of drinking water is possible only in a highly digitalised environment. Information infrastructure implemented and information systems used are considered with the same importance as water supply network while they are integrated. They have to operate as crucial infrastructure all time, and they have to fulfil the requirements for information systems security and safety. Mariborski vodovod is using smart water network layered approach for intelligent management of their system (Fig. 12.1).

Majority of operations in the water supply are conducted outside in open-air space; therefore it is very important that information systems support space issues and enable the use of geolocation and spatial data. Information systems architecture in Mariborski vodovod comprise of three categories of information systems, applications and tools:

Key information systems in Mariborski vodovod are (Fig. 12.2): Enterprise resource planning applications, Asset management, Work order management, Customer information systems with billing, GIS, Water loss, Water quality, Control room. Information infrastructure of the company consists of a modern network of servers and workstations which allows running all necessary information systems/applications/tools also in a mobile environment.

Enterprise resource planning functionality is in Mariborski vodovod achieved by integration of accounting, warehouse management and human resources management application modules with billing, work order management, asset management, water loss management, smart meter reading, and vehicles management.

To implement necessary spatial features and functionalities needed for better quality of conducting their business activities – use of geo-visualisation of ERP data – they have implemented ArcGIS from ESRI. Employees in Mariborski vodovod perceive ArcGIS as a very user-friendly and easy-to-use application. With the integration of ERP functionality and GIS functionality, they added value to support for operational activities (Fig. 12.3) in the sense of enhanced support for employees.

Mariborski vodovod recently extended their ERP applications with DMS system including e-archive which improved accounting processes and accessibility to the documents and their tracking. Currently, they are integrating the DMS system with GIS system to add spatial features. Report on Fig. 12.4 shows how working/route documents of employees assignments are linked with spatial data showing vehicle license plates showed on the map to allow better work force management. The data source for such reports are an ERP system and a DMS system.

Management data provided by reporting functionality of used ERP system and other BI tools are enhanced with spatial features to provide spatial dashboards for management. Dashboard on Fig. 12.5 shows employees efficiency for chosen month on the basis of the data obtained from smart meter reading software and information is visualised on the map. The map shows the number of smart water meter reads (remote reading). It enables zooming by which detail information about each water meter (reading date and time, volume, reading distance) can be seen.

Technical information systems and applications – SCADA - intended to manage water pumping and distribution to the customers. On the basis of the measurements of flow rates, pressures, surfaces of the water in containers that are part of the network system, SCADA maintains the correct pressure in the network, operates pumps in the pump stations and stations for drawing water, and if necessary, it doses needed quantities of disinfectant and ensures uninterrupted supply of drinking water. For the security reasons, this part of the information system is to some extent isolated from other parts of information systems. The maintenance of this part is essential, as in the case of operational difficulties it may lead to immediate disruptions of the water supply (Fig. 12.6).

Mariborski vodovod is conducting intensive digital transformation which was defined as part of their strategy. To achieve these goals they have already implemented some projects of advanced applications while some are still in progress. In several advanced applications, high level of integration with GIS is needed.

Use of GIS in organisations and its integration with other information system becomes widespread and is an important issue for organisations. The functionality of GIS is very useful and add value to information systems already used in organisations. Importance of GIS differs from organisation to organization and also from industry to industry. Industries with location based resources and wit location based business events are leaders in GIS implementation and use. There are many opportunities to use GIS in organizations – the company Mariborski vododovod already exploited many of them successfully Examples of GIS use in Mariborski Vodovod show that they are beyond initial GIS use on a basic level and that they use GIS on an advanced level. According to this, we can conclude that they already entered the GIS adoption phase which correspond to stabile and advanced use and that they are approaching maturity phase. Without the leadership of top management – CEO and CIO – this could not be possible.