Lord Kelvin is often quoted as first stating “If you cannot measure it, you can not improve it”. Some iteration of this quote has been used for decades as justification for the installation and expansion of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems throughout water and wastewater systems across the globe. Unfortunately, the statement is woefully inadequate to lead to real improvements, regardless of whether it is with respect to treatment, pumping, distribution, or any other facet of the water and wastewater life cycle. A step is missing. That step is analysis. If someone or something does not analyze data to determine whether it indicates that a process is working optimally or not, data itself will not lead to any improvement. SCADA is an exceptional tool to turn things on and off or ramp them up or down based upon setpoints, but it is unfortunately not capable of the deep analysis necessary for optimization of virtually any process. Analytics is required for that. This presentation will illustrate the differences between SCADA and analytics for several water and wastewater utilities across the US using case studies. Several of these case studies will demonstrate how analytics assisted in the optimization of pumping operations using VFDs that resulted in up to 45% energy savings. Other case studies will show how the same VFDs masked issues with plugging of solids handling pumps, and how analytics identified the issues. Another will show how the analytics platform allowed engineers to identify a 28% reduction in capacity for a raw water line due to air pockets in the pipeline, and how the operators can now see if the pockets return. A final case study will illustrate how analytics helped another utility optimize their distribution system to reduce water age and disinfection byproducts. The presentation will also demonstrate how analytics should be used to first determine whether a VFD should be installed on any given pump to optimize its operation before that VFD is ever purchased. Unfortunately, this analysis is rare, and an exceedingly high number of utilities in the US are being incentivized to put VFDs on pumps that are not amenable to their use. This is actually leading to higher energy use from utilities who were looking to optimize for energy reduction. Today’s utilities face many challenges including rapid growth, tightening regulations and the silver tsunami. SCADA is a wonderful tool, but it is woefully inadequate at enabling utilities to optimize their operations to meet these challenges. This presentation will show how analytics can provide more meaningful and actionable intelligence to assist utilities in optimizing their operations.