HIGH PROFILE
Abel HM pump underground at a mining operation in Poland
Pushing the pump performance envelope
For this month ’ s pumps edition , we caught up with Jaak Palisaar , ABEL Pump Technology CEO , to talk piston diaphragm pumps and specifically its latest Smart Pump Assistant innovation
ABEL Pump Technology , based in Buchen , Germany is well known in mining for supplying large piston diaphragm pumps for transport of abrasive tailings or viscous backfill paste , especially its HM and HMQ types of pumps . It has recently developed its innovative Smart Pump Assistant ( SPA ) – a first of its kind in this pump sector – after a 3.5 year journey involving a truly cross functional team . Jaak Palisaar , ABEL ’ s CEO provided insights on the background and development of the project and what it can bring to customers in terms of results
Q What are the typical problems with piston diaphragm pumps and how your new ABEL Pump Technology Smart Pump Assistant helping customers identify these and importantly translate this into efficiency gains and cost reduction ? JP : Our experience over many years of our pumps working in the mining industry means we know exactly what type of failures can occur and are likely to occur . With the ABEL Smart Pump Assistant ( SPA ), we can closely monitor the pump operations and identify all common failures fully automated 24 / 7 all around the globe . Unplanned downtime can be avoided , and maintenance can be done much more efficiently . We already see today a reduction in pump operation costs of 15 % -20%. Usually , we divide all failures into two main categories , with one of those being wearbased failures , where our system is functioning as a predictive tool . The SPA helps our customers also to understand and control the so-called event-based failures . These types of failures could be caused by many incidents – eg valve blockages due to too big particles – it is something usually you cannot predict – it occurs as an anomaly during operation . SPA helps the maintenance teams to initiate immediate and very targeted actions . It has been really interesting for us to see that in both categories there is a lot of optimisation upside for the customer . For wear , we can say to them , look , your pump is likely to have a wear-based failure in 20 days time – then we can ship the necessary new parts to them in the appropriate time they are needed . For eventbased failures , we can give customers immediate indications that a certain parameter needs addressing right now . Over the last three years we have built up a database of these events which have all been closely tracked . We very rarely see
Jaak Palisaar , CEO Abel Pump Technology any major breakdowns but what we do see is that these customer advisories on taking immediate action have increased efficiency by about 7.5 %. The wear-based feedback to customers is more about bringing down the maintenance costs of the pump – for example bringing down planned maintenance events , say from happening every six months , to happening every seven or eight months . I would also say it is critical for us to understand the process steps before and ahead of the pump in terms of maintenance as that also has a major effect on our equipment – again the new system is helping us do that . To summarise , our new Smart Pump Assistant allows us to identify what the anomaly is , to pin down where it is on the pump , such as in which chamber , to predict what type of failure might occur and to give the appropriate advisory to the customer . We like to think of it as a hyper care offering based on sensors to avoid unplanned downtime and allow optimisation of pump operation costs . Every few seconds we collect new data and based on this the SPA algorithms and AI understand the health of the pump . When needed , the SPA provides our customers with intelligent and very targeted advice on how to optimise pump operations . This is a lot more than just condition monitoring .
Q How has the industry typical approached maintenance of these pumps so far – with scheduled manual checks ? JP : Our customers , especially in mining , I would say are experts . Their crews check the pumps regularly and have their own maintenance and action plans in place . We are not trying to replace that . But we can reduce the workload on those crews , who typically are having to monitor many equipment types , not just pumps . Plus , as mentioned over the long term , we allow them to push the limits safely and , in the process , reduce downtime and costs . By that I mean both reducing the service intervals but also the service duration . If they are having to look at the whole pump during a service it might have been traditionally two days of work . If the service is more focused based on real data and targeted to the specific failure or inefficiency point , this time reduction can be really TCO significant too .
Q Why did you develop this new predictive maintenance solution - was it in response to customer requests or a realisation that the technology existed to be able to bring it to market or both ? JP : We always talk intensively to our customers and so we understand their needs and concerns , and of course bringing down TCO is a top priority for them along with minimising or preventing
18 International Mining | JUNE 2024