Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JULY 2015 | 13 Industry leader maintenance cost, and understanding that at the granular level of the asset or the piece of equipment," he says. "Do we actually know how much a progressive cavity pump costs to maintain over its asset life? Probably not, because a lot of those costs are buried in large, regional operational budgets. As we go through the AMP, we'll see more granularity of what it does cost to operate a piece of equipment, because that understanding will give you its true Totex cost. A cheaper piece of equipment may cost a lot more to maintain and operate, and require more operators. I don't think we've got that granularity in the industry at the moment, but I am sure we will become more mature in that area." 3D design, off-site assembly Beneath the level of these major economic regulation-driven trends, Ratcliff also puts his finger on a number of shi…s that are taking place in the way the industry goes about the business of designing and building assets which are set to make things much more efficient in AMP6. The greater use of 3D computer modelling at the design stage, as opposed to 2D drawings, is one of these game-changing developments, he believes. "Designing in a 3D environment is essential for thinking about how you actually package up pieces of equipment and assemblies. If you are bringing in packages, with all those interfaces and clashes, you have to do that in 3D. There are some different ways of working required - previously you would have lots of drawings which you would sign off, but how do you quality check and quality control a model? But I think people are embracing it - CAD operators, designers and engineers want to work in this way." This 3D design plays it part in what he sees as a wider move towards using standardised products and off-site assembly in water projects. Ratcliff notes MWH's recent work, along with Costain, on Severn Trent treatment works at Strensham and Frankley as examples of this approach. Both projects involved equipment being assembled off-site – the latter case as far away as Dublin – before being shipped to site and slotted into the building. "What that approach does is allow you to build in a factory environment - reducing health and safety issues and weather constraints – and reduce the construction time when those pieces of equipment and assemblies come to site," says Ratcliff. "You are bringing things in and assembling them like pieces of Lego, or Meccano, if you like. We've seen some great examples of this which occurred in AMP5, and there'll be more in AMP6; I think it's certainly where the industry will go. The challenge is driving a culture of that with the engineers and engaging with the supply chain to see what is possible." process for their water company partners. This is a checklist of five potential solution types to consider in order: 'eliminate, collaborate, invigorate, operate, fabricate'. Stopping a problem at source – for example by preventing pollution in the catchment – should be the first possibility considered, followed by collaborative solutions, such as working with councils on surface water separation and sustainable drainage. Improvements to operations, using instrumentation and smart activity in the network, should then be considered before the final resort of building new assets. Ratcliff says that water companies are now adopting this thought process, as well as placing a higher emphasis on reducing operational cost via planned rather than reactive maintenance. Non-asset solutions such as catchment management will figure strongly in their plans in future, although Ratcliff cautions that progress in this regard will be dependent on building up a solid evidence base. "What people are looking for [with catchment management] is an evidence-based approach," says Ratcliff. "You've got to have that evidence base in order to say, 'if we take this different approach it will still have the same benefits, and here is the evidence to prove it'. We're seeing water companies running pilots and trials with farmers to manage at source, and undertaking their own river water models to employ catchment consenting and trading, which can optimise the level of wastewater treatment plant upgrades. Those studies are needed in AMP6 order to get the evidence for Totex outperformance which will inform the new catchment approach in AMP7." It is not only catchment solutions that require more evidence. While investing in more proactive maintenance – and a fuller appreciation of maintenance costs in the procurement of new equipment - seems like the right thing to do from a Totex viewpoint, o…en the data required to inform these decisions is lacking or at least not readily available, according to Ratcliff. "We've got enough experience to know how much things cost to build and deliver, but where it's harder is around operational and Path to the top 1995 Richard Ratcliff joined Bechtel, process designing and commissioning a large number of United Utilities AMP2 wastewater projects. 2000 Joined MWH as Process and Technical Manager. Worked on a number of wastewater and biosolids schemes for United Utilities in response to the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive 2002 Moved to Australia, working on effluent reuse schemes, nutrient removal upgrades and AD projects across Australasia and Singapore 2006 Lived and worked in Dubai, where he was design manager for a major effluent reuse scheme in the emirate 2008 Returned to the UK as Water Sector Director. Since 2008, he has spent time in the Middle East working on effluent reuse schemes for many of the new developments in Dubai and Bahrain. He has spent time in the Netherlands working on designs for a number of energy factories; and been MWH's Framework Director for Severn Trent, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water. "Totex is providing a great opportunity to work more closely with the operations departments of water companies" Richard Ratcliff

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