The pump and pump systems manufacturer Wilo leverages IoT to deliver even better digital services for its customers. The company’s IoT platform enables pumps and remotely located installations to be monitored via dashboards, making maintenance simpler and more efficient. The solution is based on the IoT platform ThingsBoard and Kafka for data connectivity. It is fully customizable and therefore provides long-term flexibility and planning reliability.
Wilo is a premium provider of pumps and pump systems. With more than 8,400 employees worldwide and annual revenue of around EUR 1.9 billion, the company is a global player. To remain competitive, Wilo relies on a high level of innovation across its products and services. For this reason, the company decided to introduce an IoT platform that helps customers monitor their systems and pumps in real time and remotely, thereby contributing to more reliable, failure-resistant operations.
Flexibility and adaptability required
While searching for a new IoT platform, Wilo came across ThingsBoard and, after a three-month proof of concept, decided in favor of the solution. “ThingsBoard represents the right balance for us: it already offers many features, yet allows for flexible customization and extensions. We can cover all requirements, including future ones. This aspect was very important to us,” explains Roland Vonnahme, Research Engineer at Wilo and project lead, commenting on the decision.
During implementation, Wilo was supported by the experts from it-novum, particularly in designing the architecture and setting up the data connections. Within ThingsBoard, pump states are visualized in dashboards, enabling remote monitoring of devices and systems. In addition, alarm functions were implemented. For example, if a fault occurs in a wastewater lifting station, the responsible technician is immediately notified so they can travel to the site and inspect the system.
The company is very satisfied with the solution: “Of course, there were one or two hurdles during implementation,” says Roland Vonnahme. “But I am very proud of the result. We can offer our customers an innovative solution that allows them to monitor their systems more easily and more effectively. ThingsBoard allows for extensive customization, providing room for future enhancements. And with it-novum, we have an experienced implementation partner with whom we were able to realize the project in a very collaborative manner.”
