A Framework for Industrial Water 4.0
The ever-increasing proliferation of digitisation across society has given rise to what many are calling the “fourth” generation industrial revolution. This revolution is rooted in domains such as “big data”, “Internet of Things” and “cyber-physical systems”. Across Europe and beyond governments and wider stakeholder groups are actively developing policies and support environments to protect and/or enhance their national competitiveness in this new environment
With this advent of “Industry 4.0”, the international water community are asking is there a “Water 4.0” equivalent to Industry 4.0 and can it help solve the growing water crisis in industry? 20FIFTY Partners has secured EPA Research funding for a large scale research initiative focused on developing international frameworks for Industrial Water 4.0 in collaboration with the DECHEMA research network based in Frankfurt and a group of Irish based multinationals including Nestlé Wyeth, Thermo Fischer Scientific and ABP Food Group.
“The project will place the team at 20FIFTY Partners at the forefront of development in this field in Europe and is a strong endorsement of the company’s growing reputation as one of Europe’s leading corporate water stewardship organisations.”
The Industrial Water 4.0 concept was first defined by German research centre of excellence, DECHEMA who will be partners to the project along with a number of the Large Water Users Community of Practice member firms in Ireland.
The research programme approved for funding has three major aims:
- The development of a framework for digitisation of industrial water management and stewardship itself
- tight integration with digitisation of industrial production and
- tie-in to digitised municipal water management (supply & wastewater treatment including water resource management at the catchment level