In my previous post I introduced the PLUS framework for water-technology scalability, and expanded upon the first two attributes: Software and Usability. Let’s explore the other two: Leverage and Partners.

Leverage means capitalizing — to exponential effect — on assets, processes and data already existing in the organizations you are serving. Water utilities, for example, have plenty of ‘leverageable’ assets, primarily deep and rich knowledge, held by experienced people. Tapping into this resource is not easy, but best-practices are a power-multiplier, and baking the combined experience of hundreds of professionals into an automated decision-support system is a great way to make your solution scalable. It’s the famous network effect. A great example: SmartMap by Thomson Mapping is a Water-specific CAD software that implements existing models as a baseline for new designs. [Read more…]