Knowledge twin improves treatment efficiency

Singapore-based AI startup TeamSolve has secured an enterprise-wide operations rollout with Philippines water utility Balibago Waterworks that will use a Knowledge Twin to 'improve asset performance, operational efficiency and workforce effectiveness'.

Successful trial implantation of Knowledge Twin

The rollout follows a successful nine-month trial implementation of the TeamSolve's generative AI Knowledge Twin at Balibago Waterworks' water supply network in Capas and its water treatment plant in Arayat. The initial contract is for three years.

Balibago Waterworks is the largest provincial privately owned waterworks system in the Philippines. Over the next three years, TeamSolve will partner with Balibago Waterworks to roll out the Knowledge Twin across the latter's portfolio of more than 90 franchises outside the country's capital Manila. Together, these serve approximately two million people.

Criselle Alejandro, president of Balibago Waterworks, told media: "We know that the future is all about AI. At Balibago Waterworks, we want to ensure that we learn how to use this technology to our advantage, to provide our customers with better water service and optimise our business through all the benefits AI can deliver."

"Our goal is not to replace humans with technology, but to use AI to help our employees do their jobs better. We thank TeamSolve for guiding us through this new horizon for our business."

What is TeamSolve's Knowledge Twin?

Knowledge Twin is a patented, next-generation AI powered digital knowledge companion which is tailored for utilities, commercial buildings, and industrial facilities across various sectors.

Like a digital twin, it has been designed to integrate human expertise with data to generate advanced, on-demand insights that can enable better planning of future operations, enhance crisis response, and monitor system-wide asset health.

Acting as a dynamic knowledge base, it consolidates historical asset and incident data, expert wisdom, troubleshooting manuals, operating procedures, and field findings. This is designed to empower a workforce by delivering precise information when and where it is needed, improving operational efficiency and decision-making.

How has AI helped Balibago Waterworks?

Knowledge Twin helped to improve operational performance at the Balibago Waterworks largely through workforce efficiencies. It effectively consolidated various sources of knowledge to streamline access for employees, enabling safer, more efficient task performance. These included insights and standard operating procedures from domain experts, continuous field observations and findings, troubleshooting guides, safety protocols, reports and workflows.

The AI was integrated into a natural language interface on WhatsApp, helping to smooth the way for Balibago Waterworks' field teams to adopt. Alongside providing a singular access point for pertinent information and insights, the tool allowed teams to perform and log workflows, and capture new knowledge through text, image and audio inputs that, in turn, helped to update the Knowledge Twin.

Time was saved through the instant generation of reports, ensuring the proper documentation was gathered. During the trial, the Knowledge Twin also supported key workflows on leak surveys and repairs, water loss calculations, preventive maintenance, safety protocols and troubleshooting across all main water asset classes at the plants.

Operational improvements across all water assets

During the pilot period, Knowledge Base helped Balibago Waterworks gain time savings of 50 per cent for field teams, ensured work consistency and upskilling, improved scheduling efficiency by about 30-50 per cent, and decrease time needed for new staff onboarding.

The water utility predicts the transition from reactive to proactive and predictive maintenance will improve asset performance by over 20 per cent, while also helping to reduce non-revenue water.

Robin Wong, founder and COO, TeamSolve, told media: "This partnership marks a significant milestone for TeamSolve, showcasing the transformative power of our game-changing Knowledge Twin in delivering swift and impactful results for the water sector."

Supported by ImagineH20 funding and design

The collaboration between TeamSolve and Balibago Waterworks was supported by Imagine H2O's Water Innovation Pilot Fund, which not only unlocked funding to help kickstart the pilot implementation, but also provided advisors onsite to support the project's design.

Commenting on LinkedIn, Imagine H20, said: "We're excited to continue partnering with TeamSolve in the region to transform how utilities manage their water assets."

TeamSolve was founded by CEO Mudasser Iqbal, CCO Robin Wong, CTP Michael Allen, and CPP Ami Preis. In 2024, TeamSolve raised US$2.5m through a seed funding round anchored by Singapore government-backed Deep Tech investor and ecosystem builder SGInnovate, together with Burnt Island Ventures.

The company also participated in the ImagineH2O Asia Accelerator programme, which played a crucial role in facilitating TeamSolve's collaboration with Balibago Waterworks and helped co-fund the pilot project.