generic.de and LEWA win the Allianz Industry 4.0 Award 2023 for their IoT solution “Smart Monitoring”

23.11.2023, Stuttgart. Pump manufacturer LEWA GmbH and its partner for digital product development generic.de AG received this year's Allianz Industry 4.0 Award. The award-winning “Smart Monitoring” solution is an IoT system for industrial pumps consisting of hardware and software, which makes it possible to continuously and intelligently monitor pumps even in the most remote locations. The prize was awarded at the Startup the Future event in Stuttgart.

Digitized engineering know-how

The biggest hurdle when monitoring LEWA industrial diaphragm dosing pumps is not so much measuring as interpreting the determined parameters, such as structure-borne noise, hydraulic pressure or power consumption. The “Smart Monitoring” IoT system, designed and implemented together with generic.de, allows LEWA's internal diagnostic know-how to be shared automatically and based on key figures with end customers using specially developed algorithms. The advantage: Error states are output in plain text and with precise fault localization. At the same time, the technology forms the basis for a whole range of other applications, such as predictive maintenance, intelligent energy management, remote service or performance analyses.

“Our pumps dose and deliver critical and expensive fluids. Our customers therefore have very high standards of process reliability. As a result, we have acquired a great deal of monitoring know-how for our pumps in recent years. And with smart monitoring, we can finally make this available to our customers as well. ”
(Moritz Pastow, Program Manager Digital Services & IoT, LEWA GmbH)

At the edge of IoT

“Smart monitoring” is at the limits of IoT. Even in high-pressure applications up to 1,000 bar with highly toxic, extremely hot or extremely cold, explosive and abrasive fluids, the sensors must ensure high-frequency data collection at 1,000 Hz. Industrial pumps are used in processes that must function 24/7. Numerous pumps are used in the most remote places in the world — for example on offshore oil platforms. The system must therefore be able to provide continuous monitoring even without a permanent Internet connection.

“Technologically, the project was extremely demanding. We're not just dealing with a few standard sensor values here. Up to 2,000 signals per second must be picked up and processed cleanly. In addition, online and offline connectivity was a major challenge. ”
(Michael Puder, CEO, generic.de software technologies AG)  

As demanding as the deployment sites may be, the other end of the solution is just as convenient: the customer portal. As a single touchpoint for customer self-service, the portal allows LEWA customers to take care of their pumps anywhere and anytime. Dashboards can be used to continuously monitor all pumps in the form of digital twins. Digital asset management makes it possible to provide important documents and spare parts lists. In addition, a connection to the end customer's respective ERP system is possible.

Agile transformation included

In addition to the technical challenges, LEWA was undergoing an agile transformation process — largely caused by the IoT project itself. Program Manager Moritz Pastow quickly realized that the classic development processes in mechanical engineering were not really effective for a digital product such as “smart monitoring.” generic.de was also the ideal sparring partner for this challenge — after all, the company has always worked in agile setups and interdisciplinary teams for its software development projects.

The Allianz Industry 4.0 Award

The Allianz Industry 4.0 Award is a newly announced competition by the Allianz Industry 4.0 Network, which is initiated and promoted by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economics. Coordinated by the VDMA, this is the continuation of the competition “100 places for Industry 4.0 in Baden-Württemberg”, which was launched back in 2015. Individual solutions such as the “smart monitoring” system as well as approaches to the digital transformation of entire companies are honored.

‍

LEWA GmbH was founded in 1952 by Herbert Ott and Rudolf Schestag as a family business and is today the world's leading manufacturer of dosing and process diaphragm pumps as well as complete dosing systems for process engineering. The company, headquartered in Leonberg, developed into an international group in just a few decades. Since 2022, the company has been part of the Atlas Copco Group, a leading global Swedish industrial group for compression, construction and industrial technology. Together with the new owner, LEWA will further expand its industrial pump business. As a research and manufacturing company, LEWA develops technologies and develops solutions for the most diverse applications for its customers. The products are mainly used in chemicals, the cosmetics industry, in pharmaceutical and biotechnology, in the food and beverage segment and in energy supply, but also in the production of plastics, detergents and cleaning agents. Other areas of application include refineries and petrochemicals, in the oil and gas industry, and in the area of gas odorization. LEWA currently has around 1,200 employees and has 14 subsidiaries as well as 80 agencies and sales offices in more than 80 countries worldwide.

generic.de Software Technologies AG is a founder-led IT service provider based in the Karlsruhe technology region. Since 1999, the partner for digital product development has been supporting its customers in the conception and definition of requirements, UX design, software development and implementation as well as the operation of individual software solutions based on Microsoft.NET. With the claim to sustainable and expandable solutions in the long term, generic.de AG is one of the first companies in Germany to use clean code development across the company. In addition, it is the wide-ranging technological know-how and the long-standing Microsoft partnership that well-known B2B customers from various industries appreciate at generic.de.