Data Analytical skills and the use of agile Software within the Water Industy

WATER

As a quantity surveyor with twenty years’ experience, I have been focussing these past five years in developing my Excel skills. During this period, I also discovered a new piece of fantastic software, called Tableau. Following some eighteen months of learning and training in the use of this software, I have been thinking about some of the ways that water companies could potentially benefit from using software like this (if they are not already doing so) to derive real-time insights from their data.

Water companies could, for example, choose to track asset locations on an interactive map, drill down to the required level of detail, create custom area maps, look at water flow rates in those areas, water levels, analyse which plant assets are under performing and may need maintenance, or even replacing, look at people resource and cost data in an interactive and informative way.

If a water company uses Tableau Server to host dashboards, then they can permit team members / individuals to access the dashboards with updated information. Companies can also create dashboard notifications to inform them when certain metrics fall outside the parameters that have been set.

With the added benefit of being able to see and understand your data, and to be able to ask questions of the data as fast as you can think of them – is in my opinion – a progressive way forward. This is not to say that Excel cannot do charts and graphs and dashboards, of course it can, and it is a fantastically versatile and flexible programme which has been my main work tool for numerous years, but I’m a quantity surveyor who uses construction data – and now, with Tableau, I can do things that I would struggle to do using Excel.

If you have any questions or feel I could offer you any assistance in this area, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for your time.

Example of Tableau dashboards (and how to create custom maps) from Tableau Public; (see credits to the author on relevant dashboard link)

Thank you again.

#Water #Quantity Surveying #Rail #Utilities #Construction 

Water Based Dashboard Example: Links

https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/gallery/water-testing-results-toronto

https://public.tableau.com/shared/RZFW9NTWR?:display_count=yes

Custom Advanced Mapping Options

https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/blog/2016/01/how-make-and-save-custom-mapbox-map-your-viz