SURV. DAVID NUNOO
TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION DEPARTMENT
WELCOME TO THE TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION DEPARTMENT
As Ghana’s population increases, it has never been more important to produce more with less. GWCL continues to face increasing pressures, especially due to the impacts of climate change, illegal mining activities increasing turbidity of our natural water bodies, government will need to increase the sector’s resilience and sustainability. Innovation and technology have a vital role to play in scarcity and safety, water efficiency, utility operations, monitoring and treatment as well as big data and analytics. Global entrepreneurs are witnessing a greater willingness by utilities and business to test and adopt promising technologies: the remote sensing of water, which can help with water accounting, non-revenue water remediation and much more; the internet of things, which enables smart irrigation, water quality control, and which, when coupled with new computing capacity, allows us to develop complex models for water management.
It is in this context that the Technology and Innovation department is envisaged for providing such services driven by the Metering and Instrumentation, Non Revenue water, I.C.T, Research and Development as well as Geographic Information System units to meet such tasks. The Technology and Innovation Department is considered as the department responsible for driving change with respect to technological change in Ghana Water Company Limited.
THE UNITS UNDER THE TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION DEPARTMENT
MR. BABA AHMED ANDANI
MANAGER: I.C.T. UNIT
SURV. MICHAEL NYOAGBE
MANAGER: G.I.S. UNIT
ING. MAXWELL KUSI ARKOSAH
MANAGER: NRW/METERING & INSTRUMENTATION UNIT
The applications of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become very essential tools in almost all sectors in many diverse ways. The availability of efficient and clean water is extremely essential to human life and overall national development and human survival.
It is in this context that many initiatives have been implemented in Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and are designed to improve water availability, efficiency, accessibility, and sustainability through the application of various ICT tools. It is on this note that the ICT Unit under the Technology and Innovation department has been mandated to focus on Smart Water management to provide a platform to tackle the gap between the ICTs and effective water resource management.
Deployments of technological tools such as the Electronic Billing system, Enterprise Resource Planning system, Network security systems and robust Cloud based well-resourced applications have been deployed and serves as the backbone to drive change in GWCL in its quest to ensure effective water production.
In addition to the above enlisted, the ICT Unit is tasked with the routine administration, management, and support of all IoT’s and systems the company is running.
CURRENT PROJECT
Recent project being deployed by the ICT Unit is the E-Billing system which has been instituted to ensure effective billing processes by Ghana Water Company Limited and customers.
One of the fundamental challenges Ghana Water Company Limited faces is the non-revenue water management. The Ghana Water and Sanitation Sector Performance report further indicated that there are several factors accounting for non-revenue water distribution which leads leakages.
These leakages lead to loss of volumes of water and adversely affect revenue generation to government. Under these premises, a better water distribution network management is needed to standardize higher levels of efficiency; hence the need for the Metering and Instrumentation/Non-Revenue Water Unit.
This Department also ensures the various pipe meters installed across all the GWCL catchment area in Ghana. Introduction of zonal meters to quantify the volume of water that goes to districts in the Metropolis have been instituted by this Unit.
CURRENT PROJECT
One of the most effective concluded way of curbing non revenue water production is the smart meter. This precision water meter measures the smallest flow of water used by a single user. This has incapacitated the Unit to undertake installations of such meters at some selected areas of the country.
The GIS (Geographic Information System) unit under the Technology and Innovation Department provides a central location for data and analysis critical to the company’s surveying, planning, construction, and management. The Unit is tasked for providing hydraulic modelling structure and asset register for Ghana Water Company Limited.
The GIS Unit is responsible for provisioning support for other department such as water quality and customer care for accurate geographical mapping. It is the GIS unit that provides the core services for assets registry for GWCL and ensures up-to date database of such.
CURRENT PROJECTS
The GIS Unit is currently responsible for;
- Customer mapping and area demarcation
- New service application for various districts
- Pipeline validation and all rudiments in this perspective
Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) recognizes technology and innovation as a key strategy at the center of its core business. This is because water utilities around the world are undergoing massive transformation due to technological advancement.
The idea of continuous development, application of innovative solutions to the challenges faced by the company led to the creation of Research and Development (R&D) unit under the Technology & Innovation (T&I) department. The aim is to promote research, knowledge sharing and ultimate implementation of research findings to improve the company’s operational efficiency and service delivery
The R&D unit is mandated to, among other things;
- Identify ways of utilizing modern technology such as drones, artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning processes to improve GWCL operational efficiency
- Develop policy and procedures to govern R&D activities in the T&I Department
- Implementation standards, policies and procedures on R&D to improve the company’s core business
- Develop guidelines for data management and handling among respective units to facilitate research analysis
- Develop research proposals along all business processes particularly the core business of the company
- Liaise with existing academic institutions to deliver high quality research on GWCL systems
- Advice management based on the results of various researches conducted to effect modifications to existing policies and procedures
- Supervise the implementation of research findings
CURRENT PROJECT
- Our current research project is focusing on the application of drone technology for water utility asset monitoring and leakage detection