WET News

Building on a legacy • MWH Treatment is celebrating its past as well as looking to the future By Robin Hackett 10 WET NEWS APRIL 2019 | wwtonline.co.uk INTERVIEW MWH TREATMENT A fter a recent change of own- ership from Stantec, the MWH Treatment brand has r e t u r n e d t o t h e U K w a t e r market. Stantec opted to sell its design- and-build division to maintain focus on its core consulting ser- vices business at the end of last year and, for MWH Treatment, resuming its former brand has been a positive process. "It's been very, very easy to bring the brand back to the mar- ket," MWH Treatment managing director Paul Bresnan says. "Returning to MWH has been s o w e l l r e c e i v e d i n t h e marketplace." The spell under Stantec lasted a little over two years but, as a design-and-build process contrac- tor dedicated to the water sector, MWH Treatment ends AMP6 as it began. "Stantec's ownership allowed us to continue to focus on our organisational strategy within core water," Bresnan says. "We were already secured on a number of frameworks so we carried on deliv- ering our work." Since its re-emergence, MWH Treatment has already enjoyed some success in relation to one of those frameworks: Severn Trent recently announced that the com- pany has secured both a capital delivery design-and-build frame- work and a capital delivery build- only framework for AMP7, prolong- ing their 20-year relationship. MWH Treatment has also been nominated for three 2019 Water Industry Awards in the Contrac- tor of the Year, Design for Manu- facture and Assembly Project of the Year and Data Project of the Year categories. The Contractor of the Year nomination focused on transfor- mation to digital delivery and its 'Digital Delivery Toolbox', which the company is using to re-shape the way it delivers demanding projects. The toolbox takes four core areas into consideration – digital initiation, digital engineering, digital assembly and digital opera- tion – to see each project from the strategy phase to the asset man- agement phase. It involves making use of feder- ated 3D models to facilitate effec- tive collaboration and interface management; augmented reality to boost operational engagement and buy-in; and 4D simulations to enable the construction and co m m i s s i o n i ng wo r k s to b e rehearsed in the safety of a col- laborative meeting room. At project handover, MWH Treatment can provide the client with an asset-rich, highly detailed model to support operation and maintenance in the context of systems thinking. "We're really pleased to be shortlisted for the Water Industry Awards," Bresnan says. "We are front and centre of digital delivery at the moment. You hear a lot of talk in the market about digital engineering. "As an integrated design-and- build contractor, we're about digi- tal delivery – it's not what we could do, it's what we've done, what we've learnt and what we're going to do next. " It ' s b r i ng i ng t h e d ig i t a l approach not just to engineering, although that's an important part of it, but also the whole delivery of the project at site through into the operations as well. That's a real area of focus for us at the moment – trying to open up the digital operations. We can't do that on our own but we've got a tre- mendous amount of coverage across the UK." The toolbox is playing a valu- able role in promoting creative thinking. "One of the key benefits is the increased level of innovation that just seeing things visually brings," MWH Treatment engineering director Tom Standring says. " I t ' s l i k e t h e d i f f e r e n c e between watching a film and read- ing a script. Because you're not concentrating on 2D drawings and trying to understand what it looks like, all of a sudden we're seeing levels of innovation from new areas. "For example, when we're doing digital rehearsals and col- laborative planning, we can bring in a crane driver now and listen to and adopt their ideas. Because you see everything visually, you've got more mind space to think about innovation in so many different areas from so many different stakeholders." Bresnan adds: "We've done some amazing things on our con- version projects where we've used different technology that engages the client operations and lets them see what the assets are going to look like once it's completed. It's a very smart application of tech- nology and it's had some amazing results on some of the projects we've built so far in terms of oper- ator and customer engagement and satisfaction." The techniques are also being used to drive improvements in health and safety. The 4D simula- tions provide the basis for the digital rehearsals, which can help to ensure staff, supply chain and clients understand and adhere to plans. "If you're walking through in the digital world beforehand, you've got a far better chance of picking up the issues that would come up when they get to the physical work," Bresnan says. "That's taken us up to another level on our health and safety performance." Beyond the benefits the digital approach offers to MWH Treat- ment and its construction part- ners, the company has identified the potential to use visualisation technologies with customers. As part of a recent mainte- nance project on a major river w a te r s u p p ly a q u e du c t , f o r MWH Treatment undertakes the full range of water and wastewater processing services MWH Treatment uses detailed site visualisations, like this one of the thermal hydrolysis plant at Minworth, to engage a range of stakeholders

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