How WaterFleet provides clean water in remote sites and disaster zones with ServiceMax tech

Water may cover 70% of our planet’s surface, but it’s becoming increasingly scarce as a usable resource. This isn’t just the case in traditionally arid countries across the globe. More than two million Americans currently lack access to running water or basic plumbing; and two of the largest US reservoirs - Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona, and Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona - are in danger of reaching ‘dead pool status’ as a result of the climate crisis and overconsumption of water.

Against this backdrop of water scarcity, optimizing water use is vital, and WaterFleet is doing just that with its mobile water service.

The company was originally founded back in 2013 to solve a water-supply problem in the oil and gas sector in Texas. The staff operating a drilling rig were living in camps with no easy access to fresh water supplies; instead, water was hauled in and wastewater was hauled out. But this non-potable water was causing burning and itching sensations to people’s skin and eyes. In response, the founders of WaterFleet developed a water rig that would offer access to potable water minus the environmental impact that comes with shipping in thousands of gallons of bottled water and shipping out thousands of gallons of wastewater. David Meyers, Director of Business Intelligence at WaterFleet, says:

All of our technologies we developed have been built to solve unique problems facing remote communities in industrial construction, the energy space, renewable space, emergency response, as well as interim utility services.

WaterFleet’s core service is turning a non-potable source into potable drinking water via its trailer-mounted systems that can be located anywhere. A mobile unit connects to an existing well or water storage unit and processes the water while continually monitoring quality to ensure it’s safe for drinking. On the wastewater side, rather than needing to haul away water from flushing the toilet to a wastewater treatment plant to be treated and discharged, WaterFleet is able to carry out this process at a micro level at the remote site. Meyers explains:

We can take the domestic wastewater from the folks living on these sites and folks working on these sites, and we can treat it to a reusable standard for dust suppression, irrigation, construction purposes.

This approach has a multitude of benefits, according to Meyers. He notes:

There's obviously a health and wellbeing uplift, they have verified potable, chilled drinking water on site 24/7. If we weren't there, they'd be hauling in water from far away, it's really expensive, it's not usually potable. Then there's the environmental benefit of getting the trucks off the road, so there's not emissions related to that, you're not affecting the communities, you're not overloading local treatment plants, local municipalities. And then you're taking that wastewater that would have to be hauled out and then you can reuse it on site. So you're being a good steward of the natural resources and aiding the circular economy of water.

So far, WaterFleet’s operations have led to more than 400 million gallons of water being delivered to workforces; more than 300 million gallons of wastewater being treated to a reusable standard; and over 26 million plastic bottles being saved from landfills.

Service

Since 2019, WaterFleet has been using ServiceMax technology to help fine-tune its offerings. The company operates in very remote areas, rugged environments with limited mobile service. Prior to using ServiceMax, it was trying to increase uptime of its equipment and reduce site visits, but with a more limited amount of data on how it was accomplishing that, the firm couldn't easily set goals for improvement.

By implementing ServiceMax, the business was able to turn its remote operations into a data set for improved decision making, not only increasing uptime and reducing side visits, but improving product quality and maintenance. The ServiceMax asset management system shows WaterFleet where its rigs are deployed and any necessary maintenance required, so emergency repairs can be carried out quickly and clean water can be delivered without interruptions.

Meyers shared how using the ServiceMax tech has made a positive impact around inventory management, using the example of a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane, a core element of water treatment technology the firm has in its water rigs and water treatment systems. He says:

If, all of a sudden, I see an RO membrane was replaced two days in a row out at a site in Carlsbad, New Mexico, there's probably an issue there. Through ServiceMax I can see (a) the inventory consumption; and( b) I can see the work orders; and then (c) I can set the goals for the upstream effects of that. If there's an issue with RO membranes, there's probably something happening upstream of that, and then I can look into the logs and see when the rest of the pre-filtrations was maintenanced. It gives us powerful insight to improve the uptime of our systems and identify problems really quickly to make sure our customers don't have any disruptions in service.

While WaterFleet has been integrating Internet of Things (IoT) into its systems for almost a decade, the next stage for the business is to do more with the data collected by these sensors and networks. Meyers says:

The IoT technology's constantly developing. We have the data from these systems every couple of seconds. When I say the data, I mean the actual process data of the treatment technology. The AI tools, ML tools that are coming out to actually leverage that real-time data and provide insight into improvements in the system and having it basically right back in real time, that's the stuff that's really exciting for me personally as far as our digital transformation vision goes.

The company currently operates in 14 US states, and the goal is to reach more people, something Meyers sees happening through the industrial construction sector around solar, nuclear and data center builds. WaterFleet is also involved in disaster response, providing a water source during events like wildfires and hurricanes. Meyers adds:

That's where we all get a lot of energy every year, when we come into basically highly impacted communities after a massive disaster event. There's a ton of crews that come in, electrical linemen crews, first responders, and they build all these big temporary camps to help rebuild the communities. We can come in, provide the potable water and all the wastewater services to help the folks on these sites.