Tellingly, when we sat down to consider this question, we thought about all of the major innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs over the years who haven't even considered what they do "technology". Indeed, I believe the description most used was "the invention". Henry Ford invented the car, and the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane. It struck us that for each of these fantastic inventions to be successful; they had to display technological excellence.
If Henry Ford's car had failed and proved hazardous, how long would it have been before building another internal combustion engine was attempted? If the Wright brothers plane had crashed and been destroyed, significantly injuring them, who would have been the next people to take up the mantle?
We can look at these cases now, and thoroughly understand the way that the new inventions, new directions and new solutions only really work if they are technologically excellent.
For us, the fundamental tenets of technological excellence are described in three main areas, challenge, innovation and application.
- Challenge describes the problem that we are trying to solve.
- Innovation, more than anything, describes the approach to solving the challenge.
- Application, the examples above have demonstrated, that the correct use, of technology in solving problems, is vital.
So in the utilities industry why does technological excellence matter so much? For us, at Enzen, it's about safety, reliability and sustainability. In our ever-changing Energy and Utilities World, technological excellence is the cornerstone of any disruptive transformation on the road to digitisation. The applied use of technology has always been a way of delivering safe power, pressurised gas and clean water into the UK's homes and businesses. In any of these utilities, badly installed or poorly maintained technology, can cause damage or injury and in the worst cases death. We are fortunate that over the years, and thanks to continuing advances in technology we have been able to reduce and almost eliminate the significant hazards in our industry.
Now, challenges are changing and thanks to digital technology we can meet and exceed the expectations of the people we supply. With growing demand, diminishing resources and a focus on value, Enzen is proud to see digital and physical technology working in harmony. However, at the scale we work at in this industry, the requirement for technological excellence is higher than ever. The challenges are now not just physical but digital as well, with new elements such as protection against viruses, hacking and cyber attacks genuine issues.
For these reasons we are proud to be the sponsors of Technological Excellence at the 2018 Utility Week Awards, celebrating the very best achievements in our industry.