Anglian Water, the UK’s largest water company by geographical area, has undergone a multi-year programme to build a Smart Water Network using condition-based monitoring (CBM) on pumped and rotating assets. This approach puts insight and data at the heart of decisions and helps keep the network efficient, reliable and resilient as its region grows and adapts to climate change.
The Challenge
Timed maintenance schedules occasionally result in unnecessary maintenance trips or equipment failures between engineering visits. In addition, cost pressure prevents the installation of sensors and connectivity on all remote assets, and requires differing solutions depending on the equipment type. As a result, Anglian Water began developing an approach to maintaining remote equipment installed throughout its region based on asset health.
Anglian Water invested in six sets of vibration sensors, each set containing multiple sensors for each of the six clean water pumps at the Offord Pumping Station. Despite having the sensors installed onto the pumps, Anglian Water struggled to get the sensors online and retrieve the data that it needed. Identifying a lack of in-house skills to resolve the problem, Anglian Water engaged Green Custard to resolve the hardware and software issues preventing the sensors from communicating effectively and to explore the possibility of a fully integrated dashboard for its whole network and wider CBM program.
Charlotte Stewart
Senior Engineer, Smart Water Systems, Anglian Water
Key Drivers
- Real-time asset health data allows for maintenance based on the need
- Reduced equipment downtime by acting upon trends in data that indicate a decline in health
- Avoid regulatory penalties associated with asset downtime
The Solution
The condition-based monitoring platform developed with Green Custard uses a combination of key AWS IoT services and intuitive end-user-focused designed interfaces, which has allowed Anglian Water to achieve its goal. All sensors at the Offord site were brought online and delivered all the required data to a single-pane dashboard.
By working with Green Custard, Anglian Water was able to identify that its existing CBM data sets were of the necessary quality and accuracy to implement machine learning, and so avoid wasting time trying to develop a solution that would not succeed. Instead, Green Custard implemented alternative monitoring solutions at the Offord site which Anglian Water can use as a proof-of-concept to show its other CBM providers.
Individual Pump Dashboard
Full Site Dashboard
The Results
In the future, CBM will be core to Anglian Water’s maintenance strategy, using advanced algorithms to identify potential failure signatures so that engineers can act far earlier than was previously possible. CBM can drive down unplanned failures and their impacts on customers while reducing costs associated with reactive maintenance. It enables the adoption of proactive maintenance, allowing appropriate and targeted maintenance activities based on the assets' unique condition and performance at that moment in time.