In my early 30’s I was diagnosed with high cholesterol and my doctor gave me a choice; adjust my lifestyle or get put on a statin way too early. I chose to start running and improve my diet. Within three years I was a top age group runner and even qualified for a national championship. Running is hard, but so are obesity and heart disease. I got a similar wakeup call in 2024 when I met with a city council member and a resident who wanted us to use all available data to deliver better service. At the time, we were under three consent orders and on the verge of a building moratorium due to a lack of water supply. The resident, who worked for a technology firm, drilled us on the need for digital transformation. To my chagrin, I knew nothing about digital transformation and flubbed my way through the meeting.
What followed were frantic calls to colleagues about what digital transformation is and how to bring it about. Within two months, we started a digital roadmap process to evaluate our digital maturity and identify short- and long-term objectives for transformation. Our utilities department includes five divisions (water, collections/distribution, wastewater, utility billing and engineering) each utilizing multiple data streams including geographic information systems (GIS), computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). We discovered that while we have all this great data, they live in silos, rely heavily on manual processes and are captured by systems needing significant upgrades.
The road mapping process developed a multi-year program to tackle each need based on priority and available funding. One major effort we are undertaking includes migration of three historic CMMS systems into a unified platform across our water, collections/distribution and wastewater divisions. This effort is being handled largely in-house and involves a high amount of effort since the historic systems were not built out properly. Another engagement is modernization and cyber-hardening of our SCADA networks. Starting with a vulnerability assessment we developed a five-year program to standardize equipment and processes while updating cyber security protocols. Our most ambitious activity is the development of a centralized data warehouse and reporting platform. The goal is to create a comprehensive data warehouse for critical data sources (SCADA, IoT, AMI, etc.) so they can be analyzed without heavy manual processing. For example, when completed, the platform will allow for quick comparison between water distribution data, AMI consumption data and distribution pressure data to aid in identifying major breaks which have not bubbled to the surface.
We are young in our journey and there are many challenges ahead, but in the end digital transformation is coming to all utilities. One key to our early success has been strong engagement from division managers and IT department partners. To achieve buy-in we started with a workshop laying out the case, vision and approach for change. We also held one-on-one interviews with each stakeholder to understand current challenges and resistance points. Ultimately, the leadership of this core team has allowed us to build momentum quickly. Digital transformation, like all of life, is hard, but as I tell my high school track star daughter, you get to choose hard. You can get out ahead of it, embrace change and plot your course or you can be dragged along kicking and screaming when your stakeholders demand it. For the City of Fort Myers Public Utilities Department, the choice was clear: embrace the future and use digital transformation as another tool in achieving our vision of being the best municipal utility provider in our area.
