Pump and water technology company, Grundfos, and data analytics company and digital machine health solution provider, Augury, are taking a major step toward digitizing water and utility infrastructure worldwide by signing a long-term strategic partnership. Together, they will develop smart diagnostics solutions and services for Grundfos’ customers.
Most of us take access to good quality water for granted. It’s easy to take the systems that extract, move and manage it for granted too, explains Saar Yoskovitz, CEO of Augury. “But the health of those systems has a direct impact on the availability and health of the water we all use. By bringing digital machine health to the water lifecycle we’ll be able to elevate the availability and performance of those underlying systems to new levels, reducing downtime, waste and the health and economic risks that can happen when this fundamental resource is not available,” he says.
“We’ll do this by integrating Augury’s sensing, analytics, and workflow solutions into Grundfos’ applications knowledge and pumping solutions,” says Yoskovitz. “We’ll also apply our combined expertise in digital transformation to help customers not only improve the tools they use, but change the way they work, to get the maximum value from these capabilities.”
The two companies have already been working together successfully over the past two years to test new products and service offerings across several markets and industries. Now, they are committing to the next step, offering a range of services and new business models enabled by connected equipment.
“By adding an AI-driven intelligence layer on top of existing assets, we can automatically collect mechanical and operational data, providing actionable machine health insights and diagnostics to our customers and service organization,” says Grundfos Group VP, Global Service & Solutions Tommy Due Høy.
Augury works with the world’s largest manufacturers and industrial companies to transform their operations by providing real-time diagnostics regarding the health and performance of their machines. The combination of Augury’s AI-based solutions with Grundfos’ deep applications expertise has the potential to dramatically change water delivery and services.
“Water is the most fundamental resource in the world,” says Yoskovitz. “Grundfos and Augury are partnering to apply some of the world’s most exciting new technologies to one of mankind’s oldest and increasingly urgent challenges – moving, managing and treating water for people and industry. Through our partnership, we’ll leverage these capabilities to improve every aspect of the water lifecycle, from extraction and delivery to processing and purifying.
Yoskovitz tells IndustryWeek that educating the market on the importance of the partnership and how it will better the lives of customers and water is the biggest challenge going forward. “Many organizations, in all industries, aren’t taking the proper steps to ensure the health and safety of their machines,” he says. “It will take time to educate the global network on how this partnership will enable new business models related to water-as-a-service.”
Augury has spent the last eight years working with manufacturers and utilities to ensure that people around the world can always rely n the machines that matter and have seen first-hand the impact it brings.
“Our applications knowledge has consistently been the key differentiator for us to provide best-in-class pumping solutions to the world. As we prepare our portfolio for the future, it is key that we leverage this knowledge base to build more intelligence, IoT, remote monitoring and advanced diagnostics into our offerings to ensure differentiation, which is one of the highest priorities for Grundfos,” said Anupam Bhargava, group vice president, industry at Grundfos.