Water distribution and related services

Tender description

Yorkshire Water have an aspiration to be the one of the best performing Water and Waste Water Companies in The UK. Whilst we are successfully attaining the clear majority of our performance commitments for this AMP period, we need to improve in the area of Internal Sewer Flooding and need to achieve stretching targets in specific areas by the end of the AMP (2020). In 2011, new rules introduced by the Government meant that water and waste water companies took over the ownership of a large section of previously privately-owned sewers. These sewers are largely not recorded on mapping, are small diameter and individually used by small population numbers. These factors mean that the current suite of monitoring devices is not suitable for the ISF requirement, so we need to go to the market place for solutions that are not generally available to the water industry currently. We require solutions for small diameter sewer monitoring, data transfer and data analytics. To increase the prediction and detection of, and reduce the occurrence of Internal Sewer Flooding, Yorkshire Water believe there may be a requirement for devices to monitor phenomena at all the following locations: — gully, — rodding eye, — soil vent pipe, — small diameter domestic drain, — vertical and ramp backdrops, — access chamber, — inspection chamber, — sewer in road outside houses, — manhole in a road outside houses, — sewer in field. It is therefore Yorkshire Water’s intention to set up a Framework Agreement for the potential purchase of devices that can monitor these locations. In line with the strategic intent to keep our customers’ bills as low as possible, Yorkshire Water are seeking ultra-low cost devices for this purpose – that is devices that are below the current market average for wastewater network monitoring devices. It is Yorkshire Water’s intention to set up a Framework Agreement for the potential purchase of devices that can transfer data collected by monitors in Lot 1 to a data analytics engine in Lot 3. As it is envisaged multiple monitor types will be required depending on their location, it is also envisaged this may mean multiple data transfer devices may be required.The devices will communicate by GSM, Wi-Fi or other methods and must be able to push data from the device(via a local hub if required) to a bespoke protocol server. In line with the strategic intent to keep our customers’ bills as low as possible, Yorkshire Water are seeking ultra-low cost devices for this purpose. The Internal Sewer Flooding Analytics Engine must be able to accept data from a number of different sources to produce management Information that will allow Yorkshire Water or its contracted suppliers to intervene in the network of waste water assets in such a way as to prevent an escape of water from those assets creating standing water, running water or visible deposits of silt or sewage solids in the property. The supplier must be able to provide evidence that allows Yorkshire Water to differentiate between incidents triggered by "Other Causes1" (including blocked sewers and defective gullies) and "exceptional rainfall events2" (including those caused by high river levels, inundation due to surface run-off or overflowing watercourses). It must continuously improve the quality of management information that it produces (for instance through the use of machine learning). Management Information from the analysis engine needs to be compatible with the operation of the Yorkshire Water Control Room (full details will be provided at tender), which, in conjunction with our waste water asset partners and the expectations of our customers, operates a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.