Grundfos Site Companion
Turning Site Visits into a Collaborative Digital Asset
An integrated internal content platform that helps Grundfos sales engineers streamline site visits, analyse sites and products and collaborate.
- Client: Grundfos
- Services: 3D content platform, 3D development, frontend development, UX design
- Visit: internal platform
The Challenge
Grundfos, a global leader in pump and water solutions, performs thousands of site visits annually. These visits are critical for planning maintenance, executing upgrades, or selling new installations. However, sites are often remote or not easily accessible, making it crucial to maximize the value of every visit and keep return trips to a minimum.
The traditional method of taking pictures, sharing them via insecure messaging apps, and making disparate notes was simply not scalable. It created data silos, made collaboration difficult, and risked losing vital information.
A Collaborative Effort
This platform was created by a large and talented team at Grundfos. My role was to contribute as a specialist, focusing on the frontend development, UX design, and the implementation of the core 3D capabilities that allow users to interact with the scanned environments. The backend architecture, mobile app, and data processing were expertly handled by the in-house Grundfos team.
The Solution
We contributed to the “Site Companion,” a custom-built platform that enables Grundfos’ internal teams to prepare for, execute, and analyse site visits in a structured and highly collaborative fashion. A central component of the platform is its powerful 3D capability, which turns a standard phone into a powerful data-capturing device.
The Site Companion has several key capabilities:
- Capture, View, and Annotate 3D Scans: An engineer can create a 3D scan of an entire installation on-site using their phone. This digital twin can then be annotated with notes and labels, pinpointing specific areas of interest for the entire team to review remotely.
- Structured Information Hub: All relevant information, from 3D scans and photos to technical notes, is added via a dedicated mobile app and is immediately accessible to all relevant stakeholders. This creates faster feedback loops and leads to better-informed decisions.
- Secure, Role-Based Collaboration: Built with Single Sign-On and granular permissions, the platform makes it easy and safe for internal teams and external partners to collaborate on a project, ensuring the right people see the right information at the right time.
The Result
The Site Companion makes complex site visits a pleasure, not a pain. It ensures every stakeholder is on the same page by creating a single source of truth for each physical site. This organized, visual, and collaborative approach not only improves efficiency today but also serves as a training ground for future developments in digital twinning and remote asset management.
Testimonial
“The central challenge of the Site Companion was making 3D site data genuinely useful and interactive. We brought Klaas in specifically for his expertise in this area, and his contribution was invaluable. He delivered the entire front-end 3D experience, creating the intuitive engine that allows our teams to navigate, analyse, and collaborate within digital replicas of our sites. Without his specialized skill set, this project would have taken significantly longer to complete even in a large organization like Grundfos.”
Nicolai Bæk Thomsen, Senior Manager, Grundfos