Nathan banner

Meet the latest addition to our team: Nathan Muggeridge!

Meet the latest addition to our team: Nathan Muggeridge!

Starting his career in water engineering, Nathan’s passion is to collaborate with different people and explore technologies to create change that leads to a positive outcome for all, which includes VAPAR’s customers. We are incredibly proud to have him join our team.

To share a little more about Nathan, we asked him to answer some questions that illuminate the personality behind the talent.

Tell us a bit about your background?

NM: At age 14, I knew I wanted to become a water engineer; I loved spending time in and around water (still do) and had a motivation to build things (still do). This led me to a 20-year career in the UK water section that has covered a multitude of roles and sectors; working for large consultancy to produce hydraulic simulation models, setting up my own consultancy business that delivered projects ranging from the development of a £100m investment plan for London’s sewers to establishing multi-million-pound sewer maintenance contract.

Other experience includes extending the life of a start-up by 3 years, initiating and implementing a multi-award winning behavioural change programme and product managing a number of software solutions. For the last 2 years, I have been working for National Highways, helping establish their Strategic Investment Planning capability, which saw the team grow from just me in Feb 2019 to over 100 people involved in creating the multi-billion pound renewals investment plan for 2025 to 2030.

How did you come to join VAPAR?

NM: I joined VAPAR as I wanted to help build something new again and do it using new technology. I’m motivated by using new technologies to drive changes that lead to positive outcomes, and this is ultimately the purpose of VAPAR. Furthermore, my previous experience has been based around infrastructure asset management. I wanted to expand this to include digital asset management, using data and new technologies to drive better investment decision making.

Where did your interest in Asset Management come from?

NM: Like so many people, I hate seeing waste and Asset Management provides a logical mechanism for minimising wastage. Plus, I like how the principle is transferable from sector to sector, and most sectors involve some form of gravity pipework.

What are your interests outside of work?

NM: Spending time with my family, road cycling, mountain biking in the winter, paddleboarding in the summer, walking the dog and sailing. Other interests include helping to coach a local swimming club for a couple of hours a week and listening to business or comedy podcasts.

What advice would will you give anybody for a better tomorrow?

NM: Be curious and comfortable with change. The world is always changing, and you should be changing to make it better.

For more information about the latest developments at VAPAR, you can connect with Nathan on Linkedin here or reach out to us via our Contact page.

AI in Sewer

AI in Sewers

AI in Sewers

The importance of the pipe network beneath out feet

Our cities and suburbs are supported by a vast underground network of water, wastewater and storm water infrastructure. This network of gravity pipes, pumps and filtration systems play a very important role in the quality of our life, eliminating disease, safeguarding the environment, and protecting communities.

However, parts of this aging infrastructure are nearing the end of its useful life and now (more than ever) requires closer attention. Without attention, this situation is not sustainable.

Most of our water and wastewater infrastructure were installed during the 19th century and municipalities are facing the challenge of broad-scale infrastructure replacements or repairs costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Adding to all this is the changing climate factor, meaning systems that were designed 30 or so years ago may not be sufficient to support everchanging environment around it.

To extend the life of infrastructure, reliance on smart city technology capabilities is critical. By creating visibility into buried assets to understand the conditions of underground infrastructure, utilities can compare current performance with expectations, and predict when and where problems may arise. This also leads the way to prioritisation of maintenance work, decreasing downtime of the assets, resulting in reduced interruptions.

Today’s technology

With sensors and actuators becoming more cost effective, an array of technologies is becoming available for the pipe industry. For pressure pipes or pipes transporting materials under high pressure, static sensors are being used to help monitor the health of the asset. In sewer and stormwater applications, inspection by video still is widely adopted with assessment being carried out visually by an expert.

With operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) coming together, data that were once only available in isolated networks is now available via the world wide web. What this means is CCTV operators are no longer needing to download inspection videos to a hard-drive in order to assess the condition of the pipe in the office, instead they can upload the video file over the cloud.

AI at your service

With more data being available and accessible, a path has been paved for advanced technology such as artificial intelligence or AI. These smart algorithms feed on data, in-fact, the more data that is available, the quicker and more accurate an AI system can become.

Like other technologies, AI is tool to better understand a problem so to make data driven decisions. One of the areas where AI is helping the pipe industry is in the field of video processing. The traditional means of CCTV condition assessment presents several challenges including time taken to review the videos and identify defects, the operator subjectivity and field conditions making visual inspections difficult.

The AI models are pre-trained to detect certain anomalies, in this case pipe features and defects. The inspection video is then ingested and inferenced against the trained model. The result is the identification of the type and importance of anomalies.

VAPAR’s AI

Integrating the above-mentioned technologies, the VAPAR.Solutions platform leverages cloud computing and its AI engine to automatically assess inspection videos that users upload. The platform is accessed via any web browser where videos can be uploaded, analysed, manually audited by an expert (if required), with a report generated and stored, eliminating the need for hard drives to back up the video data and corresponding reports.

With this approach, both asset owners and CCTV contractors are reducing the time taken for assessments, standardising the process to remove any subjectivity and utilising AI to deep dive into the data to get better outcomes.

In 2020, VAPAR worked with asset owners in Victoria, Australia, where the results showed that the solution outperformed the same inspection carried out manually. The AI algorithm missed fewer defects and was more accurate in grading the pipes. To date, VAPAR has processed over 3 million images, which means the AI has only become quicker and more accurate.

Industry impact

With the need for the pipe network needing special attention, technology is adding another lens to take a closer look. It’s empowering engineers, operators, and decision-makers to make data driven decisions more cost effectively and proficiently.

Read more about our case studies here: CASE STUDIES

Manju Mani smiling for picture

Meet the latest addition to our team: Manju Mani!

Meet the latest addition to our team: Manju Mani!

Starting her career in civil engineering, Manju’s passion for advocating simple solutions to global problems drew her to the field of marketing and eventually to VAPAR! We are proud to have her join our team.

To share a little more about Manju, we asked her to answer some questions that illuminate the personality behind the talent.

Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to join VAPAR?

MM: I hold my bachelor’s in civil engineering and MBA in marketing. I have worked in sales for four years, which helped me to learn about consumer behaviour and perspectives. I believe in honesty and integrity, which won me customers and results.  

Amanda and Michelle are my inspiration to join VAPAR. I love how they are representing women in a typically male-dominated engineering industry! They are incredible role models, and I am sure I can learn a lot from them.

Where did your interest in Marketing come from?

MM: As a kid, advertisements always caught my attention. So being creative is very important to me as it helps me stand out from my peers and gives me the satisfaction of being different. Also, I am a people person, love to help people with solutions for their needs in both personal and professional life.  

What are your interests outside of work?

MM: I love to sing and rap. Oh yes! I can rap Eminem’s Rap God fast bit! 😀  

If you could go back and relive a moment in your life, what would it be? 

MM: Any day with my mom is good as gold.

What is that one piece of advice you will give anybody for a better tomorrow?

MM: Be appreciative of others. It is the easiest positive emotion.

For more information about the latest developments at VAPAR, you can connect with Manju on Linkedin here or reach out to us via our Contact page.