Yorkshire Water has begun a smarter sewer inspection trial that sees its teams collaborating more and using a cloud-based platform to share information.
Technicians can upload images and videos for their colleagues and senior engineers to access remotely and solve problems faster.
CCTV footage and underground photos can be accessed by teams on site, at home or in the office while teams are visiting customers’ homes in response to a problem.
Nathan Clayton, technical specialist at Yorkshire, said: “This technology allows our teams to share images and information with in-house specialists to use their expertise to identify the problem and find a solution, whether that be a blockage, a collapsed sewer or an issue in a difficult to access section of our network.”
He added that quickly sharing information across teams improves efficiency and reduces the impact on customers.
The technology will also be used by the company’s network protection teams to show customers how blockages have been caused and to avoid similar incidents happening again.
The WinCan web portal allows business-wide access through an interface that can be shared throughout the team.
Yorkshire’s final determination for PR19 included a performance commitment to reduce internal sewer flooding incidents by 47 per cent to 1.34 incidents per 10,000 connections during AMP7.