Southern Water is deploying an artificial intelligence tool that will help to predict when equipment in its wastewater network is about to fail, avoiding potential loss of services.
The technology is installed on its wastewater submerged pumps to spot early signs of mechanical issues, electrical faults and blockages.
Southern Water has teamed up with technology firm Samotics, and following a successful pilot in 2024, a full deployment of up to 3,500 devices is taking place throughout 2025 across the South East.
SAM4 by Samotics, is a condition monitoring tool specifically designed for hard to reach and submerged industrial equipment.
The devices work by collecting information on how machines operate under normal conditions, so that once patterns of unusual behaviour occur, an alert is sent to technicians to investigate, to head off any potential loss of service.
The technology takes measurements of the equipment’s condition at a resolution of 20,000 datapoints per second, noting signs of wear and tear, and general performance anomalies.
Daniel McElhinney at Southern Water said:
“Unplanned failures of critical equipment can lead to a negative impact on our customers, the environment and results in increased operational costs. To mitigate this, we are deploying this new AI tool, which provides near real-time data to detect early signs of equipment failure.”
Tom Swain, Head of UK and Ireland at Samotics said:
“SAM4 is the leading solution to remotely monitor hard-to-reach pumps. By installing our hardware in pumping equipment our technology detects early signs of mechanical issues, electrical faults and blockages so that maintenance can be carried out, only when required.”
Source: Water Magazine