SWAN Forum Collaborates With Karmous-Edwards Consulting And Julius Education To Demystify Digital Twins For The Water Sector

Inefficiencies in municipal water sector infrastructure often lead to conversations about investing in capital intensive projects, with data and digitally-driven technologies often playing a back-seat driver role. But what if such investment decisions were actually made based on context data and behavioral models? Could this help utilities have a more holistic view of their assets, from a product level such as pump optimization to an entire distribution system, prior to greenlighting elaborate feasibility studies and physical construction?

The rising interest in a subsect of Smart Water, ‘Digital Twins’, suggests that they will play an increasingly vital role in the move from reactive to proactive smart water utility management, empowering utilities to simulate before they act, better align with varying data sources/sets, and ultimately more sustainably manage both their internal systems and customer interactions.

With this in mind, The Smart Water Networks Forum (SWAN), the leading, global smart water and wastewater network, in collaboration with digital twin thought leader Karmous-Edwards Consulting and training platform engagement partner Julius Education, are pleased to announce the first of its kind online course on “Demystifying Digital Twins.” Tailored for the water sector, this one hour introductory course offers insights into the basic components, applications and ultimate usefulness of digital twins from a design, construction and operational level.

Thanks to practical modules delivered eloquently by SWAN Digital Twin Work Group Founder and Co-Chair Gigi Karmous-Edwards (Karmous-Edwards Consulting), this course guides learners on the journey from the basic digital transformation terminology through an industry accepted Digital Twin Architecture. Supported by utility case studies and practical implementation roadmaps, this training showcases the tangible steps utilities can take in transitioning from theory to practice.

Commenting on this exciting collaboration, Shirley Ben-Dak, VP Strategy & Innovation remarked: “Providing highly targeted training opportunities for our fast-growing membership is essential to delivering continuous value to the utility workforce and broader membership pool of industry experts, including those at the forefront of Digital Twin technologies. We are thrilled to collaborate with our knowledge partners on this exciting course and further drive this sector forward through the continued impressive efforts of the SWAN Digital Twin Work Group.”

With over 30 years of experience in the water and data communications sectors and twelve uniquely focused on Digital Twins, the course’s principal instructor Gigi Karmous-Edwards, President of Karmous-Edwards Consulting, remarked: “This course shares the practical fundamentals of Digital Twins and its uniquely powerful technology based on the synergistic duo of marrying calibrated behavioral models with context data. We invite you to explore how the resulting data-informed insights provide optimized designs, efficient operations, predictive asset maintenance, early warnings of anomalies, and the ability to perform what-if scenarios."

Daniel Goldsmith, Managing Principal at Julius Education says, “This course provides an accessible overview of Digital Twins in a compelling format that answers learners most important questions regarding the current status and future of Digital Twins.”

With high praises from global thought leaders from Northumbrian Water, KWR, Specific Energy, NCSU, VCS Denmark, City of Houston and many more, we recommend all those with a passion for water, data, modeling and understanding asset and dynamic system behaviors, to explore this online course.

*SWAN Utility and regulator members enjoy complimentary access. All other SWAN Members receive a 50% discount. For more information, visit here.