“The key to reliable pump performance in the long term is good maintenance,” Kajsa Dannberg explains. “Flygt pumps are built to last, and if they are properly maintained they will last a very long time indeed. But we know that a lot of our customers struggle with maintenance – they have good intentions but often have limited resources, and sometimes they don’t know where to turn for help.”
Dannberg is Segment Manager for Parts & Services at Xylem. She has been with the company for nearly four years and during that time she has seen and heard about many examples of pump owners or operators who consciously or unconsciously adopt a “wait-and-see” or “run-to-failure” approach. But such an approach is very risky, she says, because when a wastewater pump suddenly stops pumping, the result is almost always messy, time-consuming and expensive for the customer to fix.
Report instantly emailed after audit
As part of Xylem’s efforts to help customers achieve trouble-free pumping, the company developed and launched its TotalCare Services concept in 2012. TotalCare Services are now available at Xylem service centers around the world, and as the demand for them has grown, so has the need for new IT tools to speed up service delivery.
“Our new TotalCare Condition Audit inspection and reporting tool enables our service technicians to create the report step by step as they carry out the inspection – they can easily add photographs or comments as required,” Dannberg says. “At the end of the visit, they simply sign and press send, and the report is delivered to the customer by email. With the report in hand, it’s very easy for the customer to see what the issues are, if any, and also to see what needs to be dealt with urgently and what can wait.”
Avoiding unnecessary costs
According to Dannberg, a Condition Audit is not only about finding components that require repair or replacement, but also about maximizing system efficiency. “By regularly reviewing and maintaining your pumps, you can discover potential problems at an early stage,” she says. “This will lead to reduced downtime and avoiding unnecessary costs.”
Svevia, a civil engineering company that builds and operates roads and other infrastructure in Sweden, was one of the first Xylem customers to try out the new TotalCare Condition Audit service, supported by the new tool.
“The new report includes all the information I need, and I get it as soon as the inspection has been completed. It saves me a lot of work,” says Pernilla Sjöman, site manager at Svevia. “Svevia has contracts with a number of Swedish municipalities to handle maintenance of their infrastructure, but since we are not pump experts, it is a huge help to us to be able to rely on Xylem and their TotalCare Condition Audit service to help us keep all of our customers’ pumps running smoothly.”
Click here to contact your nearest Xylem TotalCare representative.