From Traditional Models to Digital Integration: How JWIL is Revolutionising Water Infrastructure Management
A part of the OP Jindal Group, JWIL Infra Limited has a comprehensive digital framework that aligns with the company’s vision and values. Driven by the core values of resilience, excellence, agility, and perseverance, the company’s strategic approach focuses on building a digital infrastructure that enhances operational efficiency and stakeholder experiences. Prasenjit Mukherjee, CIO & CDO, JWIL Infra Ltd. highlights the transformation and integration of solutions like the Digital Integrated Project Management System (IPMS) and digital platforms for operation and maintenance, thus reflecting the commitment to continuous improvement and innovation. Across departments, collaboration efforts coupled with a clear and well-aligned digital framework have helped overcome the challenges of adopting new technologies.
How has JWIL’s digital transformation strategy evolved over the years, and what have been the key drivers behind it?
Since its establishment in 2006 as part of the OP Jindal Group, JWIL Infra Ltd. has emerged as a major force for water management and infrastructure, offering turnkey projects & services in drinking water, irrigation, wastewater, and industrial effluent treatment. Guided by our core values of resilience, excellence, agility, and perseverance, our digital transformation included building a robust, agile digital infrastructure, focusing on delivering top-notch user experiences while being resilient and adaptable to change.
Our approach has matured over the years from traditional systems to a fully integrated digital platform, which in turn aligns with business growth objectives. Important in all of this has been designing the journey to fit into a framework that focuses on future opportunities and optimal cost optimisation. It is not just about the technology shift but also a change in how our teams work, data management, level of resilience, and security of our platforms, along with strong senior management support.
Can you share some recent technology initiatives that have significantly impacted JWIL’s operational efficiency and service delivery?
The success of any EPC project depends on completing activities within time, staying within budget, and minimising cost overruns. It is no easy feat, as effective communication, planning, scheduling, cost management, quality assurance, risk mitigation, and supply chain management are all critical components.
Some of the challenges we faced were addressed through the following two major digital initiatives:
- Digital IPMS: Digital Integrated Project Management System This is a sophisticated version of our IPMS called SmartVision Pro Project. The IPMS was adopted to amalgamate all critical functionalities of a project into one system. It provides modules for activities such as engineering, procurement, and subcontracting, construction. It also manages budgeting, cost management, and various kinds of risk assessments. This system integrates seamlessly into our existing SAP modules and MS Project functionalities with decision-support dashboards provided by Power BI.
- Digital Platform for Operations & Maintenance integrated with CRM: This integrated system automates tasks and consolidates project health data into one user-friendly platform, enabling us to track progress across multiple sites, proactively address potential issues, and improve overall project management.
The integrated operations and maintenance solution that we have designed is known as Project Samaksh, which aims to enhance customer care and agility in operations for customers. It includes a CRM, customer network survey tools, and asset management abilities. In addition, the integration of GIS provides real-time information on operations, while the CRM is integrated with a contact centre and a micro-website to enrich customer relations. Billing on the spot has been adopted, thus enhancing the effectiveness of the service delivery system. The next step would be deploying sensors for automatic leak detection, further enhancing the system’s capabilities. These achievements were made possible because IT, engineering, quality, and operations teams all worked hand in hand with each other. Workflows are well-documented to align business processes with application development. We also included well-structured training programs to ensure user adoption. For this innovation to be sustained, we implemented disaster recovery solutions on private clouds.
What are some of the challenges JWIL has faced while adopting new technologies, and how were they overcome?
The digital transformation process has not been without its hurdles. We had legacy systems in the way, data security concerns, functional scope definition gaps, skillset limitations, and the need for technology partners to fully understand our business processes.
We addressed these issues by building a comprehensive digital framework that aligns with our company vision and values. The framework has helped clarify the business roadmap, define customer touchpoints, and articulate how technology will support growth. We continuously track the effectiveness of our platforms and improve them based on feedback and analysis of user data. Additionally, extensive user training programs and strong collaborations between departments have helped overcome these challenges.
How does JWIL evaluate and prioritise emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, and cloud computing in its technology roadmap?
We’re continuously monitoring the adoption of new technologies to accelerate our journey of digitalisation. For instance, we have started AI projects and chosen certain SaaS and cloud-based applications for easier adoption. Many of our workloads are already in the cloud, and there are several in-production SaaS applications. IoT deployment is of great importance to us, especially for our plant operations and pipeline maintenance, and we’re aggressively pushing for its broader deployment across our infrastructure.
What role does data analytics play in shaping JWIL’s business strategies, and how is the organisation leveraging data to enhance decision-making?
Data analytics is one of the key elements of our strategy. All mission-critical applications have integrated analytics and dashboards to help the organisation make better decisions. We’re also moving toward setting up a command centre for plant operations. Data analytics will play a prominent role therein making operations efficient and monitoring-based.
Could you outline JWIL’s digital transformation roadmap for the next 2-3 years, including new technologies and innovations expected to be implemented?
Our next-generation roadmap will focus on the following areas:
– Moving to SaaS-based applications
– Utilising cloud solutions for disaster recovery
– Implementation of Digital Twins and 5D models
– Starting RPA for certain processes
– AI-based business development solutions
– IoT-integrated operation and maintenance
– Strengthened information security
– Dynamic dashboards for decision-making support
– Chatbots for customer interaction
– Upgrading the EMS (Enterprise Management System) to enhance IT operations
