In large buildings (such as IT parks, hotels, malls, hospitals) where the utilities are spread and in municipal wastewater and water supply operations, the maintenance teams regularly face challenges like shortage of skilled manpower, lack of accurate performance data of the installed pumps, details of maintenance schedules. Further, for organisations that have facilities spread allover the country or world the pump installations are also spread all over and onsite inspection is expensive and not quite feasible.

Keeping these challenges in view, Grundfos Pumps India Pvt Ltd has introduced a comprehensive remote management tool, that can monitor and control tasks from a PC anywhere anytime. The company, a 100% subsidiary of the Grundfos Group, is a leader in the supply of 'energy efficient' pumps and pump systems for domestic, commercial building services and process industry applications, as well as being a major supplier to the water supply and treatment industries and provider of packaged fire sets.

Grundfos Remote Management has been fully developed - including the software platform, within Grundfos. This reduces interface issues and also means that each component is developed with pump installations in mind. Grundfos also hosts and services the system on its own corporate hosting centre, which saves customers the cost of hosting, servicing and maintaining both software and hardware. Utility managers only need Internet access, a standard browser and a password to monitor and manage their pump installations.

The first impression users get is the unique overview of all the pump installations in their network. Users can upload an aerial photo or map of the location. It is a good measurement and verification system for all pumping systems. If there is a problem with any pump it will be seen on the screen with the location and the problem highlighted.

Managers can plan on-call schedules months in advance. The schedule determines who is to receive alarms at any given time of the day or night all year round. From a PC anywhere the recipient can log on to the system and determine the course of action to be taken. If for example a motor protection unit has been activated, the pump can be restarted online.

Changes in pump performance can be tracked using trend graphs automatically generated by the system. This can give an indication of wear or damage in the installation. Service and maintenance can be planned based on the actual condition of the installation components rather than "time since last service".

GRM can be offered as a portable unit to analyze the consumption pattern in a typical water supply system of a commercial building, down to one minute intervals. This elaborate data can be used as basis of any modification that can be done on the installation or become a basis for future design of upcoming like projects.

The GRM system is rolled out in more than 45 countries in the world.

(Deepa Anand, Grundfos Pumps India Pvt Ltd, Chennai. Tel: 044-24966800. Email: salesindia@grundfos.com)