£25,000 per week cost eliminated with Velocity Sentinam Solution
The Challenge
One of the UK’s largest Category C prisons was relying on a twin pump station that had become a daily operational liability. The pipework was blocking every day, the munchers were failing and the pump station and screening system had stopped functioning correctly, taking the system out of operation entirely.
With no automated protection against blockages, the site was forced into a manual workaround: a two-person team attending site every day to physically push rags and debris through the system to keep it running. What began as an estimated £37,000-a-year cost to keep the system limping along escalated sharply — by the time Dura Pump was engaged, the cost of daily manual intervention had risen to £25,000 a week.
For a correctional facility, this wasn’t just a cost problem. Uncontrolled blockages and an out-of-service pump station created a real risk of costly emergency repairs, unplanned downtime and operational disruption at a site where continuity of critical infrastructure is essential.
The Solution
Dura Pump proposed the Velocity Sentinam System, engineered specifically to deliver zero blockages and zero downtime, addressing the site’s problems at the source rather than continuing to manage them manually.
- SenIQ Controls: intelligent, automated control of pump operation, level management, and self-cleaning, removing the need for manual intervention and responding in real time to changing conditions.
- SenSync Remote Monitoring: continuous visibility via live data and GSM/Ethernet alerts, enabling proactive maintenance and reducing the need for site attendance — an important consideration for a secure, access-controlled site.
- Submersible chopper pumps, upgraded level control, and full integration with the site’s existing infrastructure.
The work was structured in two stages to keep the site operational throughout:
Stage 1 covered isolation and removal of the existing Flygt pumps, control panel, and level control, followed by supply, installation, electrical and mechanical works, system testing, and commissioning of the new Velocity Sentinam system. Tankers were retained on site until the new station was fully operational.
Stage 2 addressed the muncher chamber directly, with a qualified three-person team carrying out confined space entry to remove the failing munchers and install stainless steel channel and valve chamber liners, with tanker support maintaining pit levels throughout.
The Outcome
For a site of this scale and sensitivity, the result is a critical asset that runs itself, with problems flagged before they escalate. The solution delivers the certainty that the prison needs, freeing staff from a costly daily workaround.
- Elimination of the daily manual clearance routine, removing the need for a two-person team to attend site every day.
- Removal of the £25,000-a-week cost of emergency manual intervention that the previous system required to stay operational.
- A self-cleaning, intelligently controlled pump station designed for zero blockages and zero downtime, backed by a 12-month warranty on all installed equipment.
- Remote, real-time visibility of the pump station via SenSync. This reduces the need for site attendance at a high-security facility where access is more complex to arrange.
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