News

As part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Business Festival, water company Severn Trent hosted a four day event last week to explore new ideas to help tackle leakage.

The company, which has around 8 million customers across the Midlands and into north- and mid-Wales, welcomed more than 100 people from 38 organisations at the Coventry University Technology Centre, and challenged them to take part in a new ideation process.

Bob Stear, Deputy Chief Engineer at Severn Trent, said: “The event was absolutely fantastic in bringing a wide range of people together who could use each other’s expertise to explore new and innovative ways to find leaks. Reducing leakage is one of our top priorities, so it was really refreshing to hear so many ideas using tried and tested methods – alongside new innovative technologies, from different industries, that we can explore further.” 

As part of the event, attendees took part in a Design Sprint and Data Hackathon facilitated by innovation consultancy +ADD Strategy. Teams had the opportunity to pitch their concepts to a Dragons’ Den style, panel of judges who selected winners from four categories which included, best project concept, most innovative project concept, best applicable analytics, and most innovative analytics. 

“We’ve been able to reduce leakage in the past year by four million litres a day. These ideas, and the opportunity to be able to explore new innovative concepts, will allow us to approach our leakage challenge with fresh thinking and work towards reducing it even more,” said Bob. 

Severn Trent already uses drones and satellites to spot leaks from the sky, and is investing £150 million on renewing water pipes between 2015 and 2020 in its bid to reduce leakage even further.

Paul Sutherland, Managing Director at +ADD Strategy, said, “We are delighted to partner with Severn Trent on this exciting initiative.  +ADD continue to build a reputation for delivering award-winning innovation and fresh thinking.”