Delivering clean, fresh water to a community of any size is complicated. Public water suppliers must maintain everything from source to tap, including storage, pipelines, treatment facilities and distribution hubs.
However, as Dr. Eyal Brill, Chief Executive Officer of Decision Makers, Ltd., explains, “Most of the water utilities around the world are small organizations that do not have an IT infrastructure. They don’t have IT experts. They can’t afford to invest heavily in IT systems.”
Even so, IT holds tremendous potential to help keep water utilities running smoothly. That’s why Dr. Brill launched Decision Makers, a family-owned business that aims to bring the advantages of modern technology to an industry that is fundamental to life.
Using the company’s service, water utilities can detect abnormal water quality caused by things like equipment failure, accidents, and even malicious activities. Decision Makers uses a technology called unsupervised machine learning, which relies on the idea that abnormal situations create signs well before problems get out of control. Decision Makers analyzes water utilities’ data and raises a red flag when an anomaly occurs, in much the same way credit card companies monitor accounts for fraud.
Data frequency
Data is collected every 5 minutes
262 sensors
An average water system contains 262 Sensors
The requisite data is already being collected at points throughout existing networks, so the next step is simple. Dr. Brill explains: “What we tell our customers is that you don’t have to invest anything in servers, you don’t need IT experts. This is our role. We are the experts. We will give you the infrastructure. The only thing that you need to do is send the data to the cloud.”
But which cloud? After all, information about water quality and availability is fundamental to the health of the community. It must be kept secure, it must be available 24x7, and it must be supported by world-class customer service.
After a brief trial with a competing cloud provider, the company selected IBM Cloud® virtual servers as the only infrastructure upon which Decision Makers offers its service. One of the key reasons the company selected IBM is security. “One of our biggest customers was very concerned about the safety of the data. We directed them to the IBM Cloud team. All of their questions were answered quickly, and they are now confident that their data is safe on the IBM Cloud.”
As the company and its customers learned, IBM Cloud virtual servers include an impressive range of security measures, including 24x7 onsite security, proximity and biometric access control, and digital security video surveillance.
IBM Cloud also supports IBM Watson® Studio and IBM Watson Machine Learning technology, both of which Decision Makers plans to use in the future to refine its algorithms further. With IBM Watson Studio, the company will be able to prepare, manage and monitor visual models with one click.
Already, IBM Watson Machine Learning technology makes it possible for Decision Makers’ customers to “teach” the solution by providing feedback any time an alarm is raised. Over time, the system learns which anomalies are expected and which are cause for concern.
Today, Decision Makers is growing at a steady clip and boasts customers all over the world. “We are proud to call it a family business.” Their children, Adi and Barak, and their son in law, Michael, are valued members of the team, having tailored their postgraduate educations to the company’s needs.
That sense of family is reflected in Decision Makers’ relationship with the IBM team in Israel. For Dr. Brill, the service he receives from IBM is a key differentiator. “They are always there for us. It doesn’t matter what time of day you submit a question to IBM support; in less than 30 minutes, you will get attention,” he says. “This is something that is very valuable, especially when you deal with advanced technology like Watson.”
Going forward, Decision Makers plans to use IBM Watson technology to classify events automatically. This is particularly compelling for water utility executives, for whom these classifications can offer a high-level view of which challenges need attention most critically.
In the meantime, says Adi Brill, she, her husband, and her brother will continue to make their mark on the company. “Working with your family demands a lot of patience and respect,” she says. “We are lucky because our parents acknowledge that we are mature enough and smart enough to have opinions that are worth listening to. It’s something very special.”
Established in 2008 and headquartered in Shoam, Israel, Decision Makers (link resides outside of ibm.com) is dedicated to helping water utilities all over the world detect abnormal water quality event detection without having to invest in additional infrastructure. Because Decision Makers offers its solution as a service, it is able to keep prices low so that water utilities of all sizes can benefit from this technology.
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