Yorkshire Water operates more than 600 wastewater treatment works and over 2,000 sewage pumping stations. This extensive network serves 5.4 million people in the region, millions of visitors and around 140,000 businesses each year.
The traditional approach required maintenance teams to make around 70,000 trips annually to inspect and unblock sewage pumps, leading to high operational costs and increased risk of expensive emergency repairs.
Simon Rhodes, Business Transformation Manager at Yorkshire Water, highlighted the financial burden of such emergencies: “One of the big problems is that an emergency repair is about 8 to 10 times more expensive than undertaking planned interventions to stop the failure from occurring in the first place.”
Compounding these financial costs were significant logistical issues associated with such a widespread network. Rhodes explained: “The real problem isn’t an engineering one, it’s a logistical piece of work that used to cost us 70,000 trips a year. Imagine, you’ve got people driving for two hours to go and see an asset. What you don’t want is for them to drive two hours, find nothing’s wrong, and then drive back for two hours. You’re having to pay for all of that, and it’s really a logistical problem.“
To help navigate out of this state and increase maintenance maturity, Yorkshire Water have been transforming their ways of working for maintenance and reliability teams through a condition-based maintenance (CBM) strategy. As part of their CBM program, they decided to explore condition monitoring technology.
Our journey toward industry 4.0 has led us to collaborate with a wide range of companies to help enable our new operations and maintenance strategies in Yorkshire Water. One of the most interesting and successful collaborations has been around the use of ESA (electrical signature analysis). Not only are we extending the life of our assets, but we are benefiting by enhancing our environmental performance.
Partnering with Samotics, Yorkshire Water installed SAM4, an integrated solution for condition monitoring and energy optimization of critical rotating equipment. SAM4 is based on the electrical signature analysis (ESA) technique that monitors the condition and efficiency of assets from inside the motor control cabinet. This makes it particularly useful for remote monitoring of submersed pumps and other critical equipment in the water industry.
Following positive results during the proof-of-concept project in 2021 and a competitive procurement process, Samotics secured a framework agreement for ESA monitoring of over 5,000 assets. The ESA project is split across two main programs with one focusing on 1,000 most critical pieces of rotating equipment, and the other one targeted at 2,000 sewage pumping stations.
Pump blockages at sewage pumping stations are one of the root causes of pollution incidents. By leveraging accurate asset-level monitoring insights, Yorkshire Water can detect blockages forming at pumping stations. SAM4 automated clogging detection feature provides data on the severity and location of the blockages, which gives clarity to the team about the required cleaning job and urgency of response, saving significant operational costs and avoiding potential pollution events.
Limited data and visibility into their asset health, especially in remote locations, created inefficiencies and required frequent on-site inspections. SAM4 now provides real-time insights into asset health and performance, enabling the team to prioritize and schedule maintenance only for those assets that need it. This is especially useful for sewage pumping stations, which are typically located in remote places, where a trip one way can cost up to 2 hours.
Yorkshire Water relies on some heavy pumping assets to provide reliable wastewater services. With rising energy prices and some of these assets operating suboptimally, this leads to substantial annual costs. Using SAM4’s energy optimization insights and tailored advice, Yorkshire Water have been able to reduce energy consumption for target assets that were operating inefficiently.
Real-time data on asset health and performance enables Yorkshire Water to catch and repair developing failures early on. This proactive approach not only prevents costly, catastrophic failures but also ensures that equipment operates more efficiently and lasts longer.
Book a no-obligation demo today to learn more about how Samotics helps you in solving downtime and energy waste.
Finally reduce downtime and energy waste on hard-to-reach assets with real-time condition monitoring. All from the safety of the motor control cabinet.
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