United Utilities to ‘break down barriers’ for innovative ideas

As water companies are being challenged to make innovation a key focus of business plans for PR19, United Utilities said it is “breaking down barriers” to ensure new ideas can be brought to the table.

The firm welcomed seven finalists to its Innovation Lab earlier this month, which was set up to encourage “healthy disruption” and persuade start-ups and businesses to present solutions to United Utilities for issues it faces inside and outside the organisation.

Kieran Brocklebank, head of innovation at United Utilities told Utility Week: “Every water company looks in the same places to find solutions. There’s a real movement in digital and start-up companies but many find it difficult to break into huge water companies.

“We set up our Innovation Lab to crack the problem and lower barriers to get people in to meet the right people within our business.”

United Utilities has argued if services are to be improved and efficiencies are to be made then the industry needs to “do things differently”.

Brocklebank said: “We need fresh thinking in the industry. We need to innovate and embrace new ways of working and technology.”

But he questions where the new ideas will come from as the sector “does not make it easy for new entrants to bring their ideas to the table”.

He said: “EU procurement rules tend to make us use large companies. We have to be very prescriptive to define the scope of services we need. But sometimes we are not sure what we need and as technology is often being developed in isolation it can become rather difficult.”

Working in-line with the EU Procurement requirements, United Utilities said new EU legislation called the Innovation Partnership Procedure has allowed the company to procure “ideas” rather than services.

The water company has outlined five challenge areas, which it is seeking a solution for: connected customer, proactive customer, predictive asset maintenance, safe and healthy worker, and the future of water. It said the first four are known problems such as the water industry “being behind the curve with smart devices” but described the final area as a “catch all” for suppliers to tell the company what the sector could look like.

United Utilities advertised the Innovation Lab to 1,500 suppliers including fledgling, small and large businesses. The aim was to reach out to people working in other sectors and countries, who may not have considered how their “big idea could be developed for the water sector”.

The company received 80 applications, 55 of which were from organisations it had never heard of before.

The list was narrowed down to 22, with people being invited to pitch their ideas in a “speed-dating fashion” back in December.

From this United Utilities selected seven companies to join its Innovation Lab and a further three which it will work with in a “different way”.

Brocklebank, said: “It’s been very exciting to welcome our finalists to the Lab here at Warrington. It’s been a hectic time since they arrived, introducing them to their mentors and settling them in to the business. Already I can see their energy and creativity infecting the colleagues they come into contact with – it’s going to be great fun working with them over the coming weeks.”

Out of the seven to join the lab, five have never worked in the UK water industry before, Brocklebank told Utility Week. The companies come from worldwide including France, Portugal, Canada, Australia, India and the UK.

The “intensive” 10-week process for the Innovation Lab will run until April this year.

The seven finalists to join the Innovation Lab at United Utilities are:

• Datatecnics Corporation
• Emagin
• Enging
• Envirosuite
• Enzen
• Hydrao
• Typhon Treatment Systems