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Exterior of the building of the headquarters of the Ruhrverband in Essen
5 min read

Smart sensors enhance operating reliability

In one of Europe’s largest conurbations, the Ruhr Region, the Ruhrverband makes sure that enormous quantities of waste water are transferred and treated reliably. As part of this process, 125 pumping stations pump the waste water to a total of 63 waste water treatment plants. For a long time, the pumps used to be functionally tested by hand, with service personnel having to travel long distances to do so. For that reason, the Ruhrverband looked for an automated solution together with KSB.

In one of Europe’s largest conurbations, the Ruhr Region, the Ruhrverband makes sure that enormous quantities of waste water are transferred and treated reliably. As part of this process, 125 pumping stations pump the waste water to a total of 63 waste water treatment plants. For a long time, the pumps used to be functionally tested by hand, with service personnel having to travel long distances to do so. For that reason, the Ruhrverband looked for an automated solution together with KSB.

The project:

Keeping a constant eye on pumps

As a result of the high population density and the large number of commercial and industrial enterprises, the Ruhr Region’s water consumption and therefore volume of waste water per unit area is about seven times higher than average in the Federal Republic. This poses major challenges for the water management infrastructure and leads, above all, to a large service effort in connection with pumping station maintenance. However, KSB has developed a tool that enables all of the pumps to be monitored from one central location.

The client:

Ruhrverband

For over 100 years, the Ruhrverband and its water management infrastructure have been guaranteeing that the Ruhr River, with its relatively small volume of water, can supply the water needed by the entire region. For this purpose, within the river’s catchment area of 4478 square kilometers, the water management association operates more than 800 water management installations, including eight reservoirs and five impounded lakes. The Ruhrverband provides 63 plants with 125 pumping stations for waste water transfer and treatment.
Building containing Fröndenberg Pumping Station from the outside

One of 125 pumping stations: Fröndenberg Pumping Station

The challenge:

Rendering service trips unnecessary

Prematurely worn bearings or pumps clogged with solids after a storm: faults of this kind could only be identified in the past by means of a local diagnosis by hand or from a general fault alarm. What was needed was a solution that would enable precise diagnoses to be made from a remote location and would render preventive service trips unnecessary.

The solution:

Detailed remote diagnostics

The Ruhrverband and KSB have been working together as partners for decades. Ideas and suggestions for optimisation coming from the customer enable KSB to continuously adapt its products and services to the actual needs of its customers and to prepare them early on to meet future requirements.

 
In the case presented here, KSB recognised the advantages that would be gained by the Ruhrverband if the service trips could be dispensed with. Also, remote monitoring of all of the pumps can deliver much more precise fault analyses than are possible with standard warning devices. This enables the Ruhrverband’s service engineers to concentrate on their actual maintenance work instead of spending unnecessary time on inspection trips.

 
KSB suggested that their intelligent KSB Guard monitoring tool be deployed for monitoring the pumps. This had already succeeded in proving its usefulness for other customers. For this purpose, KSB gave the Department for Maintenance Management of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (IME) at the Ruhrverband a few KSB Guard systems for a practical trial. The sensor unit and the dedicated gateway can be installed by the customer without any prior knowledge and with little effort - even on pumps from other manufacturers. Equipment set-up, commissioning and subsequent monitoring are carried out with an easy-to-use smartphone app or a PC.
Sewatec pumps, pipes and valves in the pump house of Fröndenberg Pumping Station

Sewatec pumps in the pump house of Fröndenberg Pumping Station

KSB Guard mounted on a Sewatec pump

KSB Guard on a Sewatec pump

Data | Facts | Figures

Plant: Pumping stations

Client: Ruhrverband

Used Products: 49 KSB Guard units

Used products

KSB Guard

KSB Guard
Documentos

Servicio de vigilancia inteligente e integral para bombas y otras máquinas rotativas: disponible las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana, e independiente del fabricante. Con KSB, se beneficiará de un mantenimiento predictivo y una transparencia total de los datos, así como de mayor disponibilidad, más fiabilidad operativa y un funcionamiento eficiente (de las bombas de velocidad fija). Los datos importantes del funcionamiento, como las vibraciones, la temperatura, las horas de servicio y el estado de carga (de las bombas de velocidad fija) se pueden consultar en cualquier momento y en cualquier lugar con KSB Guard. Si se produce alguna desviación del funcionamiento normal, se envía una notificación inmediatamente a través del portal web o la aplicación KSB Guard. Además, los expertos del centro de vigilancia de KSB le ayudarán a analizar la causa.

Detalles

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