Who says a common water pump cannot be intelligent?<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Take a close look at the tube the man in the
\naccompanying picture is dropping into the bore hole. Is it a
\nrocket launcher? Is it a land mine? Is it a bomb? Hopefully not,
\nbecause the world, not the least of all Indonesia, has seen
\nenough destruction and suffering already.<\/p>\n
Would you believe that the shiny tube is actually a compact
\nwater pump? And a smart one, at that.<\/p>\n
It's hard to believe that a powerful and sophisticated pump
\ncould come in the form of a tube made of polished stainless
\nsteel. Honestly speaking, the tube is pretty enough to decorate
\nyour living room. Place it on top of the piano, and your guests
\nwill mistake it for a new type of musical instrument.<\/p>\n
Submersible pumps, that is, pumps that can be dropped into the
\nwell and lowered under the water basin, are not new. But to think
\nof dropping this handsome tube 100 meters below the earth
\ncertainly poses questions. How does it work? What will happen if
\nwater gets into the electric motor? How often do we have to pull
\nit up to fix it?<\/p>\n
No reason to worry, because it was made by Grundfos, a pump
\nmaker from Denmark. Although they manufacture around eight
\nmillion pumps of various types and sizes every year, they may not
\nbe the biggest pump manufacturer in the world (in fact, people
\nhave told me that a Japanese company named Ebara is actually the
\nlargest). However, Grundfos certainly has a long tradition of
\ncraftsmanship. During my recent extremely short but quite eye-
\nopening trip to this country of five million people, I had the
\nopportunity to tour their factories.<\/p>\n
The Pig<\/p>\n
The history of Grundfos is just as interesting as the shiny
\ntubular pump in the picture. Back in 1945, the small agricultural
\ntown Bjerringbro, situated in the middle of the Jutland moors in
\nDenmark, had a population of 2,335 people. They wanted automatic
\nwater works. They needed water pumps, and in those days,
\nobtaining pumps was not as easy as going to Glodok Jaya in
\nJakarta. At that time, a young man named Poul Due Jensen, who was
\nin charge of the project, came up with this bright idea: Why not
\nmake the pumps himself?<\/p>\n
So, equipped with his uncanny ability for solving problems, he
\ndesigned a pump called FOSS 1. It was a piston pump, and with its
\nshort, thin legs it looked so much like a pig it was in fact
\nnamed \"The Pig\". Poul's factory made fifty units of The Pig. I
\nsaw one of them in the company's museum.<\/p>\n
After The Pig, two different types of pumps came out of Poul's
\nfactory: The deep water pump, which was called \"Dybfoss\", and the
\nground water pump called \"Grundfoss\". Both of them were piston
\npumps, which basically worked like the \"dragon pumps\" that people
\ncommonly use in Indonesia. But they were built so sturdily that
\nthey lasted more than 40 years.<\/p>\n
Today, the company has adopted the name Grundfos (with only
\none `s'), and it has turned the small town Bjerringbro into a
\nvery modern industrial center. It makes pumps for various
\npurposes, including heating, cooling, waste management,
\nirrigation and residential uses.<\/p>\n
The factories<\/p>\n
It's easy to see why some of the machinery and tools required
\nto manufacture the pumps are not available on the market. For
\nthat reason, Grundfos has its own division that designs and makes
\nmachinery and tools. To facilitate the design process, Catia, a
\nheavy-duty CAD\/CAM from IBM, is used here, and this division also
\nmakes tools for other manufacturers as well -- including
\nmanufacturers of fans.<\/p>\n
Many of the pumps are also equipped with microelectronics. In
\nfact, Grundfos has its own clean room where they make the chips
\nused in the more versatile models. They build their own electric
\nmotors.<\/p>\n
Working at Grundfos really seems like working in a family
\nbusiness. At the headquarters, various facilities are available
\nthat employees can use to pursue their personal hobbies,
\nincluding car repairing. The guesthouse where I stayed had three
\nbars, complete with karaoke and Internet access.<\/p>\n
However, one of the most interesting things I came across was
\nthe \"FlexiJob\" arrangement that Grundfos has. The handicapped as
\nwell as those who cannot work full-time can still be productive
\nin the factory, particularly in the section where they dismantle
\nrejected pumps for recycling. Because of their physical
\nconditions, the employees here may be able to work a few hours a
\nday, yet they receive full salaries thanks to subsidies from the
\nDanish government. \"Today, about two percent of our employees
\nwork in the FlexiJob arrangement. We plan to increase it to three
\npercent in four years,\" said Jens Overgaard, the man in charge of
\nthe FlexiJob division.<\/p>\n
Enter the SQ<\/p>\n
The new SQ Series, the highlight of the event to which PT
\nGrundfos Indonesia had invited me, is really a marvel. Although
\nthe pump tube is only three inches in diameter, it is big enough
\nto contain the rotor, the electrical motor, the electronic
\ncomponents -- including the microchip and the pump mechanism, as
\nyou can see in the accompanying picture. The outer tube is made
\nfrom stainless plate that is welded using tungsten gas. The upper
\npart is welded using laser-welding techniques. A test with helium
\nis conducted to check for leaks, which could instantly damage the
\nsubmersible pump.<\/p>\n
The microchip inside the SQ pump enables it to continue
\noperating despite fluctuations in voltage level. Unlike ordinary
\npumps, it also has a feature called \"soft start\". With this
\nfeature, there won't be any spike each time the motor is started.
\nIf your PC reboots each time the jet pump in your house starts --
\ncausing a sudden sag in your house voltage -- you'll know how
\nuseful this particular feature is.<\/p>\n
What if the water level down there becomes very low? Wouldn't
\nthe pump continue working and wearing itself out? Again, the
\nmicrochip will detect if the pump is in the \"dry running\"
\ncondition, and it will automatically shut itself off. After some
\ntime, it will start again and shut off again immediately if there
\nis still no water.<\/p>\n
The pump mechanisms, which are mostly made of glass-reinforced
\ncomposite materials and durable ceramic bearings can handle sands
\nand other abrasive particles with no problems. The power cable
\nassembly is waterproof, and the cable can be up to 100 meters
\nlong without connections or plugs.<\/p>\n
The more versatile model, the SQE, has even more intelligent
\nfeatures. By using just the power cord, the microelectronics
\ninside the pump can communicate with a control box. With a remote
\ncontrol that resembles a TV control, we can make adjustments to
\nthe rotation speed and the constant water pressure. If a problem
\nis detected by the microelectronics inside the pump down below,
\nthe message will be sent up to the control box and we'll be
\nnotified. That's a very neat feature, because we neither hear nor
\nsee the pump.<\/p>\n
So, what was the biggest lesson I learned from the trip to
\nBjerringbro? Was it the beautiful countryside that reminded me so
\nmuch of my own childhood (too bad the flowers had not come out
\nyet)? No, I learned that, thanks to microelectronics, even a
\nsimple thing like a water pump can be made \"intelligent\".<\/p>",
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