The power of partnerships
“People bring different perspectives. If you bring subject matter experts together from different disciplines, I think that is the recipe for innovation.” Chris’ view makes sense, right? Looking at challenges faced, and solutions to overcome, in isolation restricts our view. But having access to a wider and deeper range of experiences and skills makes overcoming unique challenges as they arise, easier. And less costly as it’s already been done.
Chris references the approach Suffolk County took to solving a unique challenge in getting kids to school, which cost the county £20 million a year. Chris’s team sought to introduce route efficiencies that would get kids to where they needed to be but reduce the cost of doing so. “We've got some really good transport planners. They understand bus routes and they know all about moving people around Suffolk.” But they lacked the technical expertise to identify specific routes of efficiency. In fact, they didn’t think it could it possible given what they knew.
With challenge in hand, Suffolk approached a partner in the local innovation centre to see if together they could come up with a solution. “We asked the optimisation team: ‘How can we use IT to optimise transport routes? Could you build an algorithm that knows where the low bridges are?’” The interesting thing was the experts from the innovation centre weren’t sure it was possible either. But with the two teams in a room together, that’s when ideas began to flow.
The output was an artificial intelligence-based visualisation tool which identified alternative transport routes, saving the Council £2 million a year.