2 Year Reflection and Restoring our Water Capacity

I started InfraSync Technology Services 2 years ago in January 2024. Since then we have completed over a dozen projects with water utilities and have a long list of what worked great and what was a struggle.

When we launched in 2024 we spent most of our time talking about digital transformation. Maturity models, staged adoption curves, digital master planning, and other foundational things to to help enable amazing results with water technology. We kept running into issues. We would get started and then the program would fizzle or stall out. The problem wasn’t that those weren’t good things, the problem was that water utilities cannot focus on the foundational digital and data governance and data best practices in a silo. Utility departments don’t have budget lines for “becoming more digital.” They have budget lines for meeting regulations and making sure there is enough water for their customers.

What We Got Wrong

Our original approach put digital transformation front and center. That was our big mistake. In this industry, water utilities aren’t driven by efficiency and improvements, they are driven by compliance and capacity. Showing them that other sectors are “ahead” on digitization doesn’t move the needle because they’re not competing with private companies. They’re just trying to keep the water on.

Project Story – We engaged with a utility to do a drinking water digital master plan. They had serious system issues, waterloss over 30%, 10x the average utility pipeline break rate, 5x the water quality complaints of peer utilities.
So what did we do? We did what any good engineering firm would do. We gathered all the data, preformed some workshops, created a really cool 200 page engineering report. Then handed it back to the utility with a clear technology an vendor agnostic roadmap on how to solve their water issues with digital transformation and technology.

So how do you think that went? We finished that project in June 2025 and they never took a next step.

Why?

I think the problem was our digital foundations first approach. It was focused on what works for digital transformation in other industries. Not what works in water. We gave them all the information needed but then the report went into a no-mans land of what to do with it. Was it operations? Was it engineering? Was it IT? Was it Finance?

The project process itself was engaging and the utility was full of excitement but then the implementation fell short.

What We Got Right

Since then we have other projects. Once where we didn’t lead with digital master planning but lead with solving a specific problem with technology. It was not just an assessment and master plan. It was a team of engineering + sensors + software to bring together a complete and turnkey program.

Project Story – This utility was struggling with excessive I&I, overflows, waterline breaks, and all around the failures from a 50 year old utility in a rural area. We teamed with a technology contractor and co-designed and deployed a complete water and wastewater project. This included 7000+ sensors and 11 data integrations for an actual working system.

This was not a technology agnostic assessment, we just designed around the specific sensors and software we wanted to deploy and the utility could afford.

Because of this, they got a real working technology system deployed. Not an engineering report on the shelf.

They have already found 2 zones of the utility with high I&I they had no idea about before. Found multiple water quality events they caught early to prevent any water quality complaints. Found and stopped an illegal wastewater discharge into the collection system.

So how do you think that went? We finished Phase 1 in 2025, Phase 2 is being deployed now, and we are in the planning stages for Phase 3.

We learned that our best work and way to help utilities is not from assessments and planning and reports that live on a shelf. But from actually getting the work done with the sensors and software we think are best for the job.

-Andrew Swirsky, PE

2 Year Reflection and Restoring our Water Capacity