Proactive maintenance success demonstrated in innovation showcase

• Xylem – Yorkshire Water partnership halves reactive pump station visits 

• Pump blockages reduced and energy saved 

• Spring online knowledge-sharing event will highlight project outcomes 

Insights from a successful partnership between Xylem and Yorkshire Water, that has led to 51% reduction in reactive pumping station visits, will be shared during an online innovation showcase.       

Facilitated by Spring Innovation, the event takes place on 18 February 2025. It will explore Yorkshire Water’s Dynamic Asset Maintenance Programme, which has enabled the company to take a proactive approach to pump maintenance, resulting in fewer blockages and pollutions, as well as a 13% reduction in energy consumption.      

Yorkshire Water provides water and wastewater services to one of the largest areas in England and one of the key challenges of its network of wastewater pumping stations was pump blockages. When these issues arise, they require reactive, time-consuming visits from the utility’s operations and maintenance team, which incurs significant costs in fuel, time, resources and disruption to residents.   

Yorkshire Water required an easily deployable solution that delivered tangible benefits across the network. After partnering with Xylem, nearly 1,000 new pumps have been installed at 500 Yorkshire Water sites, including the innovative Flygt Concertor® solution, selected due to its proven clog resilience, pump cleaning capabilities and simple connectivity.     

The Spring showcase will be hosted by members of the project team Simon Herrington, programme manager, Yorkshire Water; Andrew Welsh, utilities director, Xylem, and Jason Robinson, account manager, Xylem.  

It will include a case study of the programme’s initial trial at a problematic site, which required two to three visits a week due to clogging. Since installation of two Concertor pumps in January 2019 there have been zero blockages recorded, meaning that reactive visits to site for this issue were completely avoided.  

Welsh said: “This successful partnership with Yorkshire Water has resulted in fewer pump blockages, pollution incidents and reactive visits. It has also reduced the whole lifecycle cost of energy and equipment and improved asset lifespan.     

“These will all be key focus areas for water companies over the next five years and we are looking forward to sharing lessons at the Spring online showcase.”  

Daniel McQuail, business development manager at Spring Innovation, said: “Spring’s knowledge-sharing showcases provide the wider sector with the opportunity to hear directly from Xylem, Yorkshire Water and other project partners, in an in-depth exploration of the project.   

“The value of Spring showcases lies in the real-world learnings from each project. Speakers will share key objectives, insights, lessons learned - both successes and challenges – and adoption recommendations. Join us to explore a proactive, preventative approach to tackling blockages and pollution.” 

The Xylem-Yorkshire Water online showcase will take place on 18 February 2025 at 10am-12noon. Register on the Spring website to learn more about how to take a more proactive and preventative approach to blockages and pollution https://spring-innovation.co.uk/events/  

Taxonomy

• Water