Water & Wastewater Treatment

50 | OCTOBER 2014 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Digging deeper ARBO thermoplastic mechanically sealed centrifugal pumps are the ideal choice for any chemical handling application where metallic pumps suffer from corrosion. ● ● ● ● Tough Pumps for Chemicals ARBO Pumps – for trouble free pumping - from the UK's leading pump specialist www.michael-smith-engineers.co.uk AB14-784 Flows up to 500m 3 /hr and heads to 90 metres Horizontal & vertical mounting options Close coupled and long coupled versions Available in polypropylene, polyethylene, PVDF & PTFE to withstand aggressive chemicals Trouble-free pumping of aggressive chemicals Lever: standardisation Ever bought in bulk? It's cheaper and you have a replacement if necessary. Other industries show that if you have fewer components and you use them more oen you get better quality at less cost. The same holds true for the processes you use. Do it more oen and you get better at it. Colin Reynell, a director at eight 2 O partner company Costain, says: "We have talked to com- panies like BP, Vodafone and M&S about how they have defined standard, repeatable products. We want to invest in very long term strategic partner- ships and that means our supply partners can also invest in developing products and improving delivery efficiency." Eliot Simons, Atkins, is the efficiency lever lead and says that although every site is different that doesn't mean it needs an entirely bespoke solu- tion. "We are using approaches from the automo- tive industry. What can we put in that is modular or standardised? That brings down project costs." Simons says that approach is already popular with engineers who like the idea that they can expect familiar equipment and processes when they ar- rive on site. It must be applied at an early design stage, however, and for designers it means a new challenge. Whereas in the past they may have ap- proached each site separately, now they will have "a catalogue of standard products and approaches that can be used as building blocks," Simons says. The challenge must be to fit those to an in- dividual site so as to get the best out of it, not just when it starts up but throughout its lifetime. Lever: do it off-site Forget the rain and snow: the best place to put together a piece of equipment is a factory or workshop. It should be designed and made by specialists who understand how it will be used and where, and it should be supplied to specifica- tion, to site, so that it can be installed fast. Reynell says that means the industry can use factory thinking: "Move from complex on-site construction to using simple components and in- dustrialising them. You can simplify the assembly process and then you can work out how to speed it up." That's where the experience of the supply chain comes in. "Off-site working means it can be simultaneous not sequential. You find the best supplier company and share programme visibility with them. They know more about designing that product than you do: get them involved at an early stage or you have lost half your efficiency gain." It's easy to see how working off-site can help lever out benefits throughout an asset's lifetime. That can be the start of a step-change in efficiency. • Ten efficiency levers ● Regulatory challenge ● Standard products ● Asset standards ● Data innovation ● Sustainability ● Procurement ● Programme optimisation ● Lean processes ● Off site ● On site tech "They were great ideas but now we are mapping them on to the programme. Is it credible and feasible? How o en can you deploy them?" Andy Bull, eight 2 O

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