About the programme
investing in experimentation
About the programme
investing in experimentation
About the programme
Siemens are seeking to further their already impressive mix of products and services for the European utilities and infrastructure market, through development of a portfolio of ‘intelligence as a service’ (IAAS) offers.
As part of the initiative to scale engagement and activity, the organisation is investing in open and design led innovation with +ADD Strategy.
The focus of this first programme is to establish a range of practical IAAS projects and collaborations in the UK utilities space with a focus on clean and waste water management.
Mindsphere
Introducing Mindsphere
Mindsphere
Introducing Mindsphere
Open IoT operating system
MindSphere connects real things to the digital world and provides powerful industry applications and digital services to help drive business success. At the core of this innovation programme, MindSphere’s open environment enables a rich partner ecosystem to develop and deliver industry applications. The team at Siemens are keen to enable harmonised integration of diverse sensors and protocols, offering rapid and practical delivery of intelligent networks, better visbility and real time decision making.
MindSphere delivers a wide range of device and enterprise system connectivity protocol options, industry applications, supporting advanced analytics and an innovative development environment that utilizes both Siemens’ open Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) capabilities and access to AWS cloud services.
This brings both the opportunity to integrate established and less tested/ novel sensors, as well as supporting new analytics through collaborative works with a diverse community of expert analytical agencies and integration with new or invested specialist platforms. Beyond advanced analytics, the team are keen to work with other stakeholders to enable digital twins for products, production, and performance.
About the opportunity
Siemens are increasingly known for their engagement in contemporary and open innovation in a wide range of sectors.
‘We are keen to work with others to accelerate the adoption of assured and secure intelligence solutions in utilities. Our offer is to enable practical integration of diverse information assets through a manageable secure platform for experimentation and mixed solution developments.’
Steve Hanslow, Siemens
The Company seek demonstrators and offer investment in projects to prove the value of IoT through collaborative innovation, experimentation and co-design.
Insight development with utilities is high on the agenda, exploring opportunities to significantly improve performance efficiency, reduce operating costs and improve customer experience.
Challenge details
About the programme
Challenge details
About the programme
The offer
The Siemens innovation team are collaborating with +ADD Strategy to provide a UK based open innovation competition over 18 months.
Every quarter we will release a new campaign theme, inviting proposals for topical innovation projects. The themes will be related to the application of IoT in utilities to solve a significant issue or exploit potential to enhance customer benefits.
What is on offer
The winning project ideas will benefit from a design sprint or hackathon sponsored by Siemens. We will selectively introduce skills and expertise from diverse sources to either define collaborative solutions or enable definition or progression of topical concept to commercial reality. This will be supported with the following benefits:
For the Utility offering endorsement/ submitting the project - one of the following 100% sponsorships:
A discrete open +ADD SolveIT hackathon to create prototype analytics (2 days)
An open +ADD Get_Involved design sprint to define collaborative solutions (3-4 days) OR
A discrete design sprint to enable definition or progression of topical concept (5 days)
For the supply companies participating:
Support from the Mindsphere team for consideration of data integration and governance
Assistance with introductions to the Mindsphere community
Development of supported offer/ commercialisation support for winning ideas
Potential for collaboration, co-investment and introduction to major clients
These offers will be provided to those companies interested in engaging with Mindsphere.
Why are Siemens running the challenge programme?
The team at Siemens are aware that many Utilities seek a single solution for complex problems. In many cases combining various techniologies provides the best overall solution.
Who can apply
Applications will be accepted from both suppliers and water companies who are willing to collaborate to solve a complex challenge or work with supply community to prototype novel solutions.
The proposed initiatives must be submitted with endorsement from, or by a specific water network operator.
What type of projects can be supported?
The proposed innovation projects must be related to or have application in the Water industry in some way (although they can be potentially beneficial across multiple utilities including water). The projects should include use of mixed sensors and novel analytics to solve problems.
Successful project proposals will either :
A: Seek to explore and solve complex challenges (include a level of problem definition and concept development)
B: Seek to enable a specific business case (include a level of prototyping, operational feasibility and commercial prototyping)
Examples could include:
How to reduce complaints about water quality
How to mitigate risk of leakage in a specific aspect of the network, or in response to a specific contributing factor.
How to reduce risk of asset or network aspect failure / avoiding critical events
How to improve customer experiences
How to submit your entry
Simply click on the button below to submit your application form.
How will the project opportunities be reviewed?
A panel including senior managers from Siemens will review your submitted project ideas and select one project each quarter to receive innovation support.
How hard is it to apply?
It is very easy and takes less than 20 minutes - simply complete the attached application form to submit your project idea.
Can I submit multiple project ideas in each campaign?
Yes you can submit up to three different projects for every challenge.
Can we apply for more than one challenge?
Yes you can. Having won a challenge previously will not discount you from being successful again although this will be considered by the panel.
Current calls
Current calls
Current calls
Current calls
Get involved!!!
The challenge programme is now live. To get involved simply click on the opportunities below.
Challenge 1: Enabling better water quality with IoT
The programme starts with an exploration of priority challenges and constraints in the water quality space, and the barriers to better decision making most affected by the potential of IoT technologies and smart networks.
The challenge kick off with an ideaLAB event on the 22nd January in Manchester.
Challenge 1 remains open:
Following the launch, the success of the first call was a delight for the team and our sponsors. The initiative has supported development workshops and project developments at Yorkshire Water, South East Water, United Utilities, Southern Water and others.
The POC and pilot projects are diverse and range from enhanced data governance and management processes, analytics and reporting to novel solution trials for operational management.
Contact us if you have an IOT challenge in UK Water requiring fresh thinking to see if your initiative could be supported by this open innovation challenge!