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Schiphol has specific demands when it comes to sewage outlets. Drainage from the piers and all other locations at Schiphol needs to be perfectly organised and to, for example pump passengers’ excrement away, the airport has a system of sewage pumping stations.
Various gates also have D-icing installations so as to be able to spray antifreeze on aircrafts during winter periods. The antifreeze is collected in special pump sumps so that the antifreeze mix doesn’t get directly into surface water. Pumps are also used to drain excess water from the runways.
Schiphol’s hard requirement was that immediate intervention was always possible if a pump malfunctioned and that the pump operating system was so smart that predictive action could be taken, for instance by using flight information to drain pumps on time before problems can occur.
This project had an extensive range of requirements and was contracted out to our client REMONDIS Smart Infra. They got this project from Schiphol because we had worked together to develop a product that does exactly what is required and at a much lower price than having to completely replace all the hardware in the pumps.
Working with REMONDIS, we developed a ‘Smart Controller’ and wrote its software. This smart controller makes sure all objects at Schiphol can be accessed remotely and that data from the pumps can be sent to the Azure Cloud environment so that preventative action can be taken when the weather changes. For this project, not only was the Smart Controller applied, but also our ServiceGate V2 and the ServiceGate Nano V3.
The development and production of the Smart Controller has meant REMONDIS continues to be way ahead of the competition by offering much cheaper and more sustainable solutions. Existing hardware doesn’t need to be replaced and Schiphol’s requirements were optimally met.
Niels Zuidervaart | Head of Control Engineering
