Success Story: San Luis Obispo County, CA
From Breaking Silos to Fixing Gaps: Finding a Single Source of Truth
Situated halfway between LA and San Francisco on the Central Coast of California, the County of San Luis Obispo has invested in the maintenance and operation of various water and wastewater facilities, including the Salinas Dam, the Nacimiento Water Supply and Los Osos Water Recycling Facility. Powered by diverse projects that embrace the importance of data collection and transparency, this county has a lot to be proud of. Waterly is thankful to be a part of this impressive county-wide effort to consolidate and simply water data management.
ABOUT SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY (SLOC)
Data collection and reporting challenges across SLOC water and wastewater were revealing data silos between SCADA, lab, and operators, making it increasingly difficult to assess the relevance and accuracy of the data shown. The County turned to Waterly on their quest to “break barriers between operations and engineering to improve efficiencies.”
AT A GLANCE
Having both water utility operator and county engineer experience, Cori Burnett, P.E. Engineer III, Public Works at the County of San Luis Obispo, had past experience with mobile data collection. She was convinced the county could improve performance by investing in an inexpensive data management system built with operations in mind.
The County’s data collection approach was viewed as more of a checkbox from paper to report, one that relied heavily on various individuals, from the field to the office, moving data around and across departments. What was not clear until the transition to Waterly was the impact of a standardized approach to data collection and its impact on improving overall efficiency.
PROBLEM ADDRESSED
Cori highlighted a specific use case surrounding a challenging storm event, where it proved very useful to have inflow and effluent data at their digital fingertips to manage wastewater systems and make necessary operational changes, rather than a month later.As a result of these and similar benefits, Cori and her colleagues were able to make faster calculations to drive data informed decisions, reducing the need for knee jerk reactions.
Being able to pull up Waterly at staff meetings provided colleagues with an aligned vision, not one based on field data entry memory. According to Cori, being invested in the onboarding itself, taking the time to get the data organized and aligned together with the Waterly team, can go a long way in ensuring and maintaining project success. This journey towards a “Single Source of Truth” was further demonstrated as part of SLOC’s work in leveraging Badger Meter’s public API to push reuse water data from Badger’s Cellular Endpoint into Waterly’s app, effectively enabling data capture and analysis (from the clipboard to the meter) all on one platform.
Lastly, the addition of helpful and fun features such as ‘talk to text’ and ‘personalized emojis’ when performing app data entry, has been welcomed by all. En route to SLOC’s ‘Single Source of (Data) Truth’, there continue to be lessons learned and more opportunities uncovered via partner integrations that provide expanded data capabilities, including wastewater SCADA and lab data.
SOLUTION(S) USED
While there was still some resistance to transitioning to digital data collection, Waterly was and is being leveraged by operators and enjoys leadership support given improvements in bridging data silos. It has sparked a sense of curiosity amongst users, as they are now able to really see how their data entry can help drive proactive changes.
OUTCOMES
Waterly has not only enabled us to fast-track compliance efforts and processes, but provided San Luis Obispo County with more data credibility given the single source of truth. This is valuable, correct data that we can then more confidently provide to the regulators and the public.
This project has helped reduce silos by showcasing an effective and affordable way to share data between our different groups, from operations to engineering.
On average, with combined SCADA connectivity that Waterly has enabled through strategic technical partners, and being able to automatically gather the data, monthly reporting and conversations about data accuracy, we have been able to save an average of 5 labor hours a month.
Teamwork and collaboration has improved, with more people and departments able to access the data in a more streamlined way and see how this impacts operational decisions
SLOC
