Shaping the Future of Water Through Innovation – with Hanneke van de Ven, Sector Director for Distribution at Brabant Water in the Netherlands

[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange 15 minute podcast, in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders from around the globe.
[00:00:10] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark, and today my guest is Hanneke van de Ven from Brabant Water in the Netherlands.
[00:00:18] Piers Clark: Hanneke, wonderful to have you with me.
[00:00:20] Hanneke van de Ven: Thank you.
[00:00:21] Piers Clark: We're gonna be talking about innovation and some particular things that you've done at Brabant Water. But before we get to that, let's learn a little bit about your background.
[00:00:30] Piers Clark: So tell me what's the role you are doing today and how did you get into that role?
[00:00:35] Hanneke van de Ven: My name is Hanneke van de Ven. I'm currently the sector director for distribution within Brabant Water. My background is engineering, but I've been working in the drink water sector for only four years. Before that, I was in a consulting engineering firm for 20 years and I did a lot of different things but not drinking water. So actually it was a new sector for me four years ago.
[00:00:55] Piers Clark: What sectors did you focus on in your consultancy work?
[00:00:59] Hanneke van de Ven: I worked across the environment, infrastructure, energy and industrial sectors, providing advice on asset management and gained a lot of management experience. And then there came a vacancy here at the board of our drinking water company. I'm really glad that I made the change because it's going from consulting and engineering where you advise clients or make designs for clients.
[00:01:20] Hanneke van de Ven: Here you have that full responsibility for the end product as well. So it's a nice change of scenery after 20 years in the consulting business.
[00:01:27] Piers Clark: I have a particular empathy with you for this ' cause I did exactly the same. I did 20 years in engineering consultancy and then I joined Thames Water as their asset director and then commercial director. And it was really interesting to go from a sort of advisor telling people what they think you should do to suddenly owning those problems yourself.
[00:01:46] Piers Clark: Now, let's share a bit about Brabant water.
[00:01:48] Hanneke van de Ven: Yeah, Brabant Water is a drinking water company in the south of the Netherlands. We have two and a half million clients that we provide with, we think the best drinking water in the world.
[00:01:57] Hanneke van de Ven: We have 29 production facilities scattered over our province. Currently we're using groundwater only, but we're also looking at alternative sources like brackish water and sea seawater, at the moment. From the distribution part, we have 20,000 kilometer of network and we have a 1.3 million connections residential and commercial clients.
[00:02:18] Piers Clark: Brilliant! Actually, one could say the Dutch are already incredibly innovative. You are already at the cutting edge. Why do you need to do more innovation? So let's start with the question of why do you do innovation in the water sector?
[00:02:30] Hanneke van de Ven: That's a really good question to start from, because I think the drinking water sector in the Netherlands is very far, let's say, developed, but also maybe we were a little bit conservative. A lot of attention went to maintaining the situation that everything is good. But a lot of things around us are changing. The pressure on the environment is changing. Politics are changing. They want more influence on the way you run your company. The conversation also includes questions about where the groundwater is allocated, whether it's used by industry, agriculture, or for drinking water.
[00:03:01] Hanneke van de Ven: Additionally, the workforce is changing as a new generation enters your companies. We have a lot of staff that have been here for 25 to 30 years, but I don't expect future staff to stay as long. The next generation is likely to have shorter tenures.
[00:03:16] Hanneke van de Ven: I think a lot of things are changing around us and focusing on innovation is essential to being agile and adapting to both the changes we can foresee now and future changes.
[00:03:26] Hanneke van de Ven: We also need to look further beyond what we did yesterday. This agility can be based on how you manage your processes and operations, as well as on the technology side.
[00:03:36] Piers Clark: I love that point because we often talk about the aging workforce, but we don't talk about the fact that the replacement workforce is going to be more transient, as you say, they're unlikely to stay for 30 years in their careers.
[00:03:47] Hanneke van de Ven: And that means that the average years of knowledge that, for example, a mechanic in the field has, when it comes to a pipeline breakdown somewhere in the middle of the night, will be lower in the future than it was like five years ago.
[00:04:00] Hanneke van de Ven: And there will be a lot more need to help those people with getting the knowledge out of the heads and into the systems. It cannot just be in the heads of the people.
[00:04:08] Piers Clark: I particularly like it because the fact that you mentioned earlier that you've only been in the water sector for four years, so you're experiencing it yourself.
[00:04:16] Piers Clark: Now, you recently completed a project with KenWave that I'd like us to explore. Why was that particular area your focus and what does KenWave do?
[00:04:24] Hanneke van de Ven: When it comes to professionalizing our asset management, we're already quite far along. When it comes to the distribution network, especially the connections to customers. We still face a lot of pipe breakdowns. The network is so large that we can run some statistical analysis, but that only gives part of the picture. But in our bigger pipelines, we see around 30 breakdowns a year, and we really need that data to make better decisions.
[00:04:48] Hanneke van de Ven: Most of these pipes were laid back in the seventies and eighties, and our asset management system doesn't have enough details on when to replace or reinvest.
[00:04:56] Hanneke van de Ven: Statistics help, but they're limited. We also want to measure the actual condition of our bigger pipelines which is tricky since they're so critical to the water supply. You can't just take them out of service for inspection, and if you do, it's manpower heavy and time consuming.
[00:05:09] Hanneke van de Ven: That's why we started looking for non-invasive technologies around the world. Together with Isle, we did a technology scan, not just to see what's out there, but to learn from the experiences of other utilities too. It's not just about hiring an innovation consultant, it's about tapping into that international network and seeing what's really working in practice. We were specifically looking for technologies to inspect our transfer lines, and from there we came in contact through Isle with KenWave.
[00:05:36] Piers Clark: So we're talking about what in some parts of the world we call trunk main. The really big high pressure mains that when they fail, they're sort of catastrophic loss of water because they're so big and they're under high pressure, but it also creates catastrophic disruption.
[00:05:52] Hanneke van de Ven: Yeah, it has a lot more impact than a smaller leakage in a distribution network. There's more risk of a lot of people being without water for a longer period. When a big pipe bursts, a huge amount of water escapes. It can wash away soil, damage roads, and cause other issues. So you don't want to have that basically as a drinking water company.
[00:06:11] Piers Clark: So you went through a process, identified that KenWave could hopefully give you some non-invasive asset monitoring.
[00:06:17] Piers Clark: How did you test it and check if they could really deliver on what they promised?
[00:06:21] Hanneke van de Ven: Yeah, we took it step by step. We worked with Isle because there's always some risk when trying new technology. First, together with our asset management team, our innovation advisors, KenWave and Isle, we defined what success would look like and what we wanted to achieve from the trial.
[00:06:36] Hanneke van de Ven: That was really important because it helped both sides understand what was being delivered and what we expected. And we came to a construct together with Isle where the risk, if the technology is not successful, is diminished. On the other hand, we provided the guarantee, if it meets the criteria, then we'll also really implement the technology.
[00:06:55] Piers Clark: Now, I love that that's the description you gave because I deliberately didn't lead you too much by saying, tell me how the Trial Reservoir worked. You've identified a technology, you worked out what needed to be done to prove definitively whether it works or it doesn't work.
[00:07:11] Piers Clark: And actually the prize was that if you can prove it works, we will implement it. We will do something at scale and think meaningful. Then means that everybody understands the risk and the reward going through. And of course, the downside risk is then covered by the Trial Reservoir initiative. And so everyone goes into it with their eyes fully wide open as to what they're doing.
[00:07:32] Piers Clark: And of course, the key part there is actually ensuring that the trial design is such that it covers all the bases that you need to be covered.
[00:07:40] Hanneke van de Ven: It's important to define clear criteria from the start. If you fail, try to fix the problem, but you also need to know when to stop. Otherwise, you'll just keep investing time and energy from both sides into something that won't work.
[00:07:54] Hanneke van de Ven: That's why setting those criteria upfront really helps. It keeps the process focused and saves a lot of effort in the long run.
[00:08:01] Piers Clark: Brilliant! Now, how did the trial go? Was it successful?
[00:08:04] Hanneke van de Ven: It was definitely successful. I think it took some efforts in the sense of preparing what kind of pipeline do we try it on. We basically did it on a pipeline where we also had done an inspection already with a more invasive technology because that's of course important and then you have to really prepare it like a project because it's outside in the fields. You have to have your permits, you have to have your staff prepared.
[00:08:27] Hanneke van de Ven: We had quite a good team from mechanics, the innovation personnel, and asset managers, and we really focused on getting the right results. In the end, it was so successful that for the next year we have 12 kilometers planned to do this technology on a bigger scale, and after that we'll decide if we really wanna scale up or not.
[00:08:46] Hanneke van de Ven: And I think it's a very promising technology.
[00:08:48] Piers Clark: It's brilliant to hear how that trial's gone, that the KPIs were met and that you are following your part of the contract.
[00:08:54] Piers Clark: Innovations are an interesting thing that different organizations treat in different ways. It feels to me like this is a core part of what you do at Brabant Water. Is there any comment you'd like to make on that?
[00:09:04] Hanneke van de Ven: Yeah, that's really true. We've made innovation a big part of our strategy. It keeps us ahead with new technologies like using a digital twin of our distribution network so we can stay agile and ready for future changes. It also helps in the labor market, which is tough right now, especially in technical fields.
[00:09:22] Hanneke van de Ven: Being active in innovation makes us a more attractive employer for different kinds of roles. Plus, it's just more fun to work on new things instead of doing the same stuff for 20 years, it keeps people engaged and interested in our sector. So overall, it's a really good move.
[00:09:36] Piers Clark: Now that brings us rather beautifully back to where we were at the beginning, doesn't it? Around the aging workforce and how you keep people refreshed.
[00:09:44] Piers Clark: Unfortunately, we are running outta time and we do like to finish with a little cheeky question. If you could go back to when you were just starting out at the engineering consultancy, what advice would you give yourself? Would you say, Hey, move into being on the client side earlier?
[00:09:58] Hanneke van de Ven: I don't think I would advise myself to go to the client side earlier because you learn a lot in the consultancy side. I just would advise myself maybe even more curiosity to the outside world.
[00:10:10] Hanneke van de Ven: Don't take anything for granted and just go with the flow, but really try also to create your own opportunities and things you're interested in.
[00:10:17] Hanneke van de Ven: You cannot start early enough with that.
[00:10:19] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me, Piers Clark, and my guest today is Hanneke van de Ven from Brabant Water.
[00:10:27] Piers Clark: Hope you can join us next time. Thank you.