Case Study: AquaSecurity Installs Innovation with Custom IoT Platform
The Customer:
AquaSecurity is a Belgian specialist in sprinkler installations. Founded in 2002, the company supports its customers throughout the entire lifecycle of their sprinkler systems. This includes consulting and design, actual installation, and ongoing 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.” By promoting digital innovation from within, the company is able to develop new business models that benefit both AquaSecurity and its customers, as well as society as a whole. “By remotely monitoring our facilities, we can act proactively to prevent problems. This creates significant added value for our customers,” says Saelens.
The Problem:
Sustainability is high on the agenda at the Aalst-based AquaSecurity. Belgian standard requires that all sprinkler systems be tested biweekly with the pumps running for 30 continuous minutes. So maintenance technicians would drive around the country to start up their pumps at customers’ facilities and monitor them for a full half an hour. The company from Aalst needed to innovate digitally to make the maintenance of their installations easier while also enabling improved predictive maintenance. To make this digital transformation happen, they called on Inimco, a PA Solutions company.
The PA Solution
This is where Rosiot came into play. 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.
“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.”
The benefits to AquaSecurity are clear. As the first and only in their market to offer a fully functional, remote testing and monitoring system, they are true innovators and pioneers. Not only that, but AquaSecurity also reduces their travel by tens of thousands of kilometers — emitting tons less in CO2 as a result. De Gieter states that “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.”
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,” 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.”
Take a look at the full case study below:
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