Less Downtime By Design: Inside The Innovation Of A Chemical Pump

Routine pump maintenance can interrupt chemical feed and consume time that water treatment operators already have too little of. Designing around that reality means looking beyond pumping performance to how equipment is cleaned, repaired, and adapted when conditions change.

In this episode from WEFTEC 2026, Rob Gledhill, president and CEO of Blue-White Industries, explains how watching operators work helped turn a pump update into a broader redesign. What began as improvements to a peristaltic metering pump became a platform designed to accommodate different pumping technologies. Blue-White Industries

The idea becomes tangible when Gledhill swaps a peristaltic pump head for a diaphragm head in about ten seconds. He explains how the software recognizes the change, and why rising system pressure might prompt an operator to switch technologies rather than replace the entire pump.

That flexibility also changes the maintenance routine: a prepared spare head can go into service while the worn one moves to a workbench. Smaller engineering decisions matter, too, including check valves designed to fit only in the correct orientation, addressing an assembly mistake Gledhill has seen in plants.

Throughout the conversation, the focus returns to the operator’s experience and the tradeoffs between accuracy, pressure, tube life, and ease of maintenance. The practical goal is to give operators more control over when and where they do the work, while reducing the time equipment spends out of service.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.