"A small, powerful team is capable of developing solutions to problems that weren't on the company's radar."
Concentration on the core business, clear strategic orientation, no detours, but the shortest possible route to the known goal: core statements that sound extremely good to many business leaders. As in real life, however, there are situations in which the farsighted entrepreneur realizes from a holistic view of the system that a single mosaic component outside his own product range would be likely to have a lasting positive influence on the core business. But what if this component is not available? Instead of complaining about a lack of availability, the entrepreneur defines the task with a view to the future and simply gets to work himself. That's how we experienced it and put a development with an enormous reach on the rails.
We knew about a problem that exists in many companies: the water quality in the cooling water system. One simply has to know that the water quality in cooling circuits simply has a decisive influence on energy efficiency, operational and process safety as well as the operating and maintenance costs of production plants, system circuits and their components. At the forefront are the costs caused by contamination or biological loads in the cooling water. The spectrum ranges from production interruptions and the resulting cleaning of tools, heat exchangers, in some cases even the entire cooling water system, to the purchase of biocides and the replacement of plants and equipment destroyed by corrosion.
Practice shows that a relatively large number of companies have to contend with high operating and maintenance costs due to poor cooling water quality. This means that a subject that should be important enough is that suitable specialists in the respective company take care of it intensively. However, because this problem does not lead to complete failures and it is difficult to specify the cost burden in concrete terms, healing trials or compromises remain which do not solve the problem. Here it is simply missing a problem solution, which is effective as a holistic system.
Over the last few years, we have repeatedly tried to develop an appropriate system solution in cooperation with renowned manufacturers of water treatment systems. One partner was able to get chemistry under control, the other partner mechanical filtration and the third control technology. The combination of all areas in conjunction with measuring systems, pumps and hydraulic integration into the overall system did not really bring anyone together.
As a system provider in the field of energy plant construction, we are partners for industrial companies in all sectors. We design the plant systems for specific projects, from complex cooling systems to clean room technology in the medical technology sector, set up the plants for the customer and offer a maintenance service. However, we obtain the system components used, from the pump to the control technology, from partner companies. Of course we contribute our system know-how to the further development of products by suppliers, but we are not a typical developer of components or complex devices - and suddenly, almost overnight, the exception confirms the rule.
Because if we succeed in creating a small, high-performance team that is enthusiastic about the idea and mobilizes all available brainpower to develop an appropriate system solution, then we can only consider ourselves lucky as entrepreneurs. That's exactly what happened at ONI. The result is a system technology called "ONI-AquaClean", which solves the problem of cooling water pollution by bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi as well as by solid particles, from the quickly settling coarse grain to the dispersing finest grain, in one go. Of course, the first shot did not immediately hit the bull's eye, but the second already sat and far exceeded expectations.
Now we see that plant operators are enthusiastic about the rapid progress in cooling water quality improvement and its impact on the overall system, and that doors are opening that were previously locked. This has enabled us to come up with an innovation more or less overnight that is helping to accelerate our successful corporate development even further. Ultimately, a good entrepreneurial decision that generates additional success.
