A pump’s price tag is only a small piece of total cost of ownership. Operating costs significantly exceed the initial purchase price, with energy and maintenance representing the largest TCO portions.
Mining professionals know this, and many would agree with a review published in Minerals Engineering that pump issues consume 18–28% of plant energy and 7% of site water.[1] Increases in water prices and stricter water regulations increase pressure on more efficient water processes.
These issues are creating more interest and demand for smart pump management. Using a combination of data analytics and digital automation, smart pumps improve efficiency and operational performance.
“A single mine can operate hundreds of pumps. Compound their various issues, even small ones, and costs quickly increase. But these often go unseen and unchanged. Visibility has become very important, driving uptake in smart pump monitoring for old and new pumps,” says Chetan Mistry, Xylem‘s Strategy and Marketing Manager – WSS (Africa, Middle East, Turkey, India).
Mistry gives the example of the Renström Mine in Sweden, which uses smart pumps to gain 40 percent in repair savings and reduce its dewatering costs by almost 30 percent. Smart monitoring exposed operational issues that led to the breakdowns, such as underperforming pumps causing pressure changes along multi-pump systems, leading to frequent breakdowns and excessive energy consumption.
Smart systems collect pump performance data, feeding the information into models that identify performance patterns. Site managers and infrastructure experts use these patterns to spot weaknesses and efficiency issues. Digital management systems automate performance management, and onboard smart systems adjust the pump directly. The data can support predictive analytics, which ranges from analysing performance fluctuations to using digital twins for persistent visibility.
OEMs such as Xylem offer smart monitoring solutions that help mining operators improve visibility into pump performance and maintenance requirements.
- Retrofitted to site conditions: Monitoring systems can be deployed on both existing and new pump systems using simplified modular installations and support a range of communication protocols that integrate with existing pump management and SCADA environments (depending on site requirements and infrastructure compatibility).
- Flexible remote monitoring: Reduce physical inspections of pumps in cramped and hazardous locations by transmitting sensor data to analytical models that serve information to control hubs and field devices, including phones and tablets.
- Manage energy and usage patterns: Analytics platforms collect, analyse, and visualize operational data to support improved decision-making. Users can run diagnostics remotely for consistent access to pump metrics.
- Recalibrate performance behaviours: Configure alarms and fault handling for any site-specific operating conditions; plug-and-play features and on-screen tooltips simplify configuration and troubleshooting guidance.
- Strong cybersecurity: Cybersecurity measures are designed to help protect operational and performance data through industry-recognized security practices and access controls.
“Smart monitoring can help identify potential issues earlier, allowing maintenance teams to take proactive action before failures occur. Mines move from ‘run it until it explodes’ to proactive, data-driven maintenance. Â It can help reduce energy consumption, support equipment reliability, and improve visibility into operating performance,” says Mistry.
Attendees at Electra Mining Africa 2026 will test-run smart pump monitoring first-hand. Xylem’s Nexicon plug-and-play pump station controller, Godwin’s Field Smart Technology (FST) technology, and the Flygt Pareo smart pump controller will be on show at Xylem’s stand (Zone Hall 5, Stand H18). Visit the event at Johannesburg Expo Centre (Nasrec), 7-11 September, and inspect smart pumping solutions that will recover millions of rands for mining operations.
