İSKİ, which manages Istanbul’s huge water and sewage infrastructure, sheds light on the city management of the future with the digital transformation initiative it has carried out in the last five years. At the introductory meeting held with the participation of İBB President Ekrem İmamoğlu under the title of İSKİ’s Digital Journey, the impressive results and future goals of this transformation were revealed.
İSKİ protects the future of water with digital transformation!
shiftdelete.netThe digital transformation process, which was implemented with an investment of approximately 1 billion TL, not only provides faster and more efficient service to subscribers, but also optimizes İSKİ operations and ensures more effective use of resources.
Three main goals underlie this transformation. These are, respectively, increasing subscriber satisfaction, providing uninterrupted service and creating a secure infrastructure. İSKİ, which has 7 million subscribers, increased the number of online transactions by 3.5 times thanks to digitalization and increased the use of digital invoices to nearly 600 thousand.
In this way, subscribers were able to carry out their transactions more quickly and easily. Additionally, we contributed to the environment by preventing paper waste. In addition, while the cashier collection speed increased by 7.9 times, the response time to malfunctions decreased by 80 percent, resulting in a significant increase in citizen satisfaction.
Tayfun İşbilen, Head of İSKİ Information Technology Department, underlines that this transformation is not only a technological renewal but also a change in corporate culture. Stating that 85 digital transformation projects were implemented in the five-year period, İşbilen proudly states that they achieved this success with the existing budget.
In the future, the creation of a digital twin of İSKİ and artificial intelligence-based forecasting studies (İSKİ GPT) are planned. In this way, the city’s water infrastructure can be modeled in a virtual environment, possible risks and scenarios can be predicted, and a more proactive and effective water management can be achieved.
İSKİ generously shares its experiences in digital transformation with other cities. SUKİ Digital Transformation Summit, held in January 2024, made a significant contribution to the sharing of knowledge and experience in this field. In short, İSKİ not only manages Istanbul’s water, but also pioneers the city management approach of the future.
IMM President Ekrem İmamoğlu said the following in his speech at the meeting:
“While we are performing routine services on the one hand, digital transformation projects are being implemented on the other hand. With an investment of nearly 1 billion TL, İSKİ successfully carried out the digital transformation process, the results of which touch the citizens, reduce security risks and solve problems.
We will achieve 3 goals with technological transformation. First of all, İSKİ subscribers will receive faster and more efficient service. This means the happiness of 7 million subscribers. Secondly; To ensure that İSKİ information systems operate uninterruptedly and faster.
And of course, this serves a purpose that will enable it to produce work effectively and efficiently. Thirdly, to eliminate the deficiencies of old information systems, especially in the field of cyber security. Our work on establishing an exact backup of the system established at İSKİ Headquarters Campus is also very important.
If this does not happen in case of a disaster, major problems may occur. Especially earthquake disaster is our most important concern here. We had to invest in this regard. “It was an investment in which İSKİ systems were provided in an environment that would ensure their uninterrupted operation.”
İSKİ General Manager Şafak Başa said:
“During the 5-year period, the Information Technology Department invested 1.6 billion TL. 840 million of this figure was spent on digital transformation projects. The existing servers were last updated in 2016 and used an information technology infrastructure focused on physical hardware.
This situation created more maintenance and energy costs. However, ever-increasing digital transformation demands made the existing infrastructure inadequate. Up-to-date hardware and license investments were needed to take precautions against constantly changing cyber attack methods and to comply with legal regulations.
In the transformation process that started in 2022, primarily the software and hardware infrastructure was renewed. “A faster and more secure information technology infrastructure has been created with up-to-date network and cyber security equipment.”