Cadagua/Ferrovial: Wastewater Treatment AI

THE CHALLENGEWhat They Faced

The deployment focused on the Heineken Valencia brewery wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), operated by Cadagua under the Ferrovial group. Manual pipe inspections were slow and costly, requiring specialized technicians to physically assess infrastructure condition across the facility.

VFA (volatile fatty acid) monitoring was a critical process control challenge. VFA levels directly impact anaerobic digestion efficiency, but manual sampling and lab analysis introduced delays of hours to days — far too slow to catch process upsets before they cascaded into treatment failures. Motor bearing health across pumps and aerators was assessed only during scheduled maintenance, with no continuous monitoring to detect early degradation signatures.

Paper-based O&M logs created compliance gaps. Operators recorded readings, observations, and maintenance actions on paper forms that were difficult to audit, impossible to trend, and frequently incomplete. Chemical tank level monitoring relied entirely on manual rounds — operators physically walking the facility to check levels on dozens of tanks, creating windows of hours where a tank could run dry or overflow without detection.

THE SOLUTIONHow Sensfix Helped

Sensfix executed a 17-week proof of concept structured around the Digitize-Automate-Optimize methodology, progressing from baseline digitization through automation to AI-driven optimization.

ServiceScanAI was deployed for automated pipe inspection, achieving 6x faster inspection throughput with 95% defect detection accuracy — identifying cracks, corrosion, blockages, and structural degradation from existing camera feeds. VFA process monitoring used AI models trained on historical treatment data to predict volatile fatty acid excursions before they impacted digestion performance, enabling proactive chemical dosing adjustments.

Vibration sensors operating at 5KHz sampling rate were installed on critical motor bearings across pumps and aerators, feeding continuous health data into the platform for spectral analysis and early fault detection. FormifyPro replaced all paper-based O&M logs with digital forms, capturing operator readings, photos, and maintenance actions in a structured, auditable format with automatic threshold alerting.

Chemical tank level monitoring was automated using computer vision on existing tank cameras, providing continuous level readings without manual rounds and triggering alerts when levels approached critical thresholds.

THE OUTCOMEMeasurable Results

Pipe inspections became 6x faster with 95% detection accuracy, dramatically reducing the time and cost of infrastructure assessment. The transition from reactive to predictive maintenance — driven by continuous vibration monitoring and AI-powered process analytics — reduced emergency repair incidents and extended equipment service life.

Environmental compliance improved measurably through real-time VFA monitoring, automated threshold alerting, and complete digital documentation of all O&M activities. The Heineken Valencia WWTP now serves as the reference deployment for Sensfix in the wastewater vertical, demonstrating the full Digitize-Automate-Optimize methodology in a live industrial environment.