Making sure we stay on top of the digital wave: The AVK Group launches a new company under the name AVK Smart Water.

A more digitised business has been a desired goal of AVK for years. According to the new company’s managing director, Lars Bo Kristensen, this is exactly what AVK Smart Water aspires to achieve;

“By developing new digital, intelligent solutions as add-ons to our core products, such as valves and hydrants, we enable monitoring of the entire distribution network. While obtaining a better overview of the grid’s condition, the knowledge we gain enables us to optimise and maintain the network and reduce water loss. Also, it will give insights into parameters such as pressure of the distribution system and the position of valves”.

Since September 2019, Lars Bo Kristensen has been employed as Business Development Director of AVK Holding with the responsibility of taking Smart Water to the next level. What started out as a separate business unit has now taken shape as an established company. After a number of management positions at Kamstrup, a Danish company developing Smart metering solutions, where he worked for more than 20 years, he now heads the new team at AVK.

Combining skills within IT development, data and electronics
The team will mainly consist of developers within IoT solutions (Internet of Things), which requires skills such as IT development, data and electronics. The team now counts 20 employees, and according to the director, time will tell what the future holds for the team; “We don’t know how many we will be. We have some ideas of course, but it will depend on how things progress.”

The first solutions ready by summer 2020

Lars Bo Kristensen expects the first solutions from AVK Smart Water to be ready soon; “We have been at it for a while with quite a few preliminary projects and expect the first solutions to be ready by summer. Currently we are working with pilot projects.”

Moving forward, customers will be able to buy smart valves and hydrants through their usual AVK product suppliers.

The AVK Group sees great business potential in implementing digital solutions. As confirmed by Group CFO, Lars Kudsk, when he reported the latest record breaking results of the Group; ”There is a significant potential for growth if we expand our product portfolio to include intelligent solutions, and this area is receiving a lot of attention right now, also in terms of investments. The demand for intelligent water solutions, both in Denmark and especially globally, is great at the moment”, he stated this December to CleantechWatch.