INTHEBLACK July 2022 - Magazine - Page 25
Left: John O’Mahony,
Deloitte Access Economics
Below: Jannat Maqbool CPA
marketing and data analytics consulting firm Loyalty
NZ is using data to better organise loyalty programs.
Yet there are also examples on the cost side.
Australian and New Zealand-based utility services
company Intellihub uses machine learning to better
understand its energy network and reduce costs and
improve productivity.
Stefan Hajkowicz, senior principal scientist in
strategy and foresight at CSIRO, says there are huge
gains to be made by business, even from just using
data and automating processes better with basic
digital technologies.
“It’s a lot of back office transactional work where
we’ve seen automated systems come into play for
processing financial information – where a human
previously used to do it, but that’s involving people
less and less,” he says.
“If you think of all the administrative stuff that goes
on in banking, finance, government, customer service,
tracking records and information and delivering
services, there’s huge scope to automate in that space.”
AI is what Hajkowicz classifies as a general-purpose
technology, similar to electricity in the 1920s, and so
has the potential to uplift capability and productivity
across the entire economy.
IOT FOR PRODUCTIVITY
The IoT is also being widely deployed for productivity
gains.
Australia’s largest water utility Sydney Water has
more than 3000 IoT sensors around its wastewater
network to monitor and detect blockages in the
wastewater network in real time, enabling efficient and
effective maintenance to clear blockages, prevent leaks
and protect the health of local waterways.
It is working to expand this network of sensors by
2024 to monitor 4600 kilometres of sewer mains that
have historically caused 70 per cent of wastewater
overflows to waterways, and expects to deploy more
than 10,000 IoT devices in 2021–2022, according to
its latest annual report.
It is also trialling water-efficiency initiatives
including digital smart metres and IoT devices in
residential homes, commercial buildings and the water
network to help customers save water and money.
There are strong productivity gains to be made,
particularly in Australia’s primary industries.
Rio Tinto is a pioneer in automation and robotics
in mining.
The company uses AI and sensors to extract insights
to improve the safety and efficiency of its mines. AI is
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