Founded in 2002, AquaSecurity supports its customers throughout the entire lifecycle of their sprinkler systems. This includes consulting and design, their actual installation and maintenance. As a company in a traditional market, its main focus is on innovation and sustainability. "Water is getting scarcer and scarcer," says Laura Saelens, CEO of AquaSecurity, "that's why we want both ourselves and our customers to treat it very carefully." The digital innovation that AquaSecurity stands for, allows the company to develop new business models that benefit AquaSecurity and its customers as well as society. "By remotely monitoring our facilities, we can act proactively to prevent problems. This creates significant added value for our customers," said Laura Saelens.
Watch the video customer case here.
Remote testing and monitoring of sprinkler installations
Rosiot is a remote testing and monitoring system for sprinkler systems, and uses IoT and Cloud technology. The name is a contraction of IoT and Rosie - the name of one of the company dogs at AquaSecurity. Sprinkler systems are required, by standard, to be tested biweekly, with the pumps running for 30 minutes. So maintenance technicians drive around the country to start up their pumps at customers' facilities and monitor them for half an hour. "Rosiot allows us to start up and monitor the pumps remotely," says John De Gieter, Chief Technical Officer of AquaSecurity. "At crucial parts of the installation we placed sensors, which are combined with camera images, to assess each situation optimally. We make connections to existing fire protection components such as a Modbus TCP and we use LoraWAN for wireless connectivity. Via 4G, all data goes to the cloud. The data remains available to both AquaSecurity itself and to its customers."
Saving tons of CO2 emissions
The benefits to AquaSecurity are clear. Not only can the company position itself as an innovator by being the only one to offer a fully functioning remote testing and monitoring system, AquaSecurity also saves tens of thousands of kilometers of travel for its maintenance technicians. "And, of course, we emit tons less CO2 as a result," said John De Gieter. "Moreover, using Rosiot allows our technical teams to carry out interventions in a more efficient way. This allows analyses to be prepared more effectively and faster. The data collected also serves as input and inspiration for potential future use cases. Instead of traditional reactive maintenance, we can now move to predictive maintenance and anomaly detection. Using Rosiot, we can also offer comprehensive remote assistance, such as remote support for a customer or technician on site."
But the benefits are not just for AquaSecurity itself; customers also benefit through the insights they gain through the platform. "Customers can view their installations outside working hours. This allows them to see whether certain alarms require urgent action or not," John De Gieter continued. "In addition, we can detect problems early on regarding energy and water consumption. Moreover, thanks to predictive maintenance, installations get a longer life."
Scalable plug-and-play solution
Rosiot is based on Inimco's IoT and Cloud platform Facts. "By using Facts, we immediately had all the building blocks of Azure at our disposal and, on top of that, all the updates come there automatically," said John De Gieter. "When we started this project, we were laymen in the field of IoT. Inimco translated all our questions and ideas into an IoT solution and that's how we came to this success story. Inimco is constantly thinking along with us. For example, our dream was to be able to install the systems without much preparation. Inimco developed a plug-and-play solution for us so that the implementation is no longer error-prone and can be performed faster by our technicians. Inimco's managed services also ensure that the platform is always up to date and that both reactive and preventive action can be taken."
Project engineer Pieter Brijs uses Rosiot on a daily basis. From the office, he can remotely initiate tests at customers' premises. Before starting a test, an engineer first looks at the cameras to make sure that no one is present in the pump room and that it is safe to start the test. He also checks to see if any alarms have come in recently. "All tests are started from our ERP system, which forwards a job to Rosiot. There are a number of sensors on each pumping installation. These measure suction, discharge, system pressure, coolant temperature, bearings and stuffing box packing, room temperature and fuel level." During the test, the engineer reviews all parameters from the previous week. After stopping the test, Rosiot automatically calculates the test results and they are entered on the test report. If any problems turned arose, they are added to the report.
A mutual commitment and partnership
"The cooperation between AquaSecurity and Inimco is best seen as a mutual commitment and partnership," says Erik De Nert, co-founder of Inimco. "We work very well together in an open, communicative and very constructive spirit. Together we go for the best possible solution for AquaSecurity and we also learn from it ourselves to continuously improve our platform." Inimco guided AquaSecurity from concept to working out the technical architecture and its implementation. "In our solution, many components are already available out-of-the-box. And, on top of that, we implemented AquaSecurity's logic so that they can apply it in a scalable way to all their customers. By providing them with a plug-and-play solution, they don't need us for every installation. We do offer both reactive and proactive managed services, and we monitor the platforms so that data keeps coming in continuously. We proactively take all the right actions to ensure continuity of operations."
AquaSecurity's innovative approach with IoT technology is a great example of how digital innovation can not only improve operational efficiency, but also play a key role in achieving sustainability. AquaSecurity has not only reinvented itself as a pioneer in the sprinkler installation industry. The result is a win-win situation: improved customer service, reduced carbon emissions and an example of how IoT can support a client-company's sustainability goals.
You can watch the video of this customer case here.