Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JULY 2015 | 21 Management Director at Black & Veatch, says that capital delivery partners have a strong role to play when it comes to the future maintenance of assets. "Something we are passionate about is making sure we create assets that are maintainable," says Earnshaw. "So o•en, when I was in an operations role, you would come to pump sets that had been put in and there was just no way of turning the spanner to undo the bolts because the wall was so close to the bolt, or it was dangerous because it was at a high level or down in a confined space. So I think the contractor partners who are actually creating these assets for the water companies need to have a mindset that says 'this is going to be here for 40 years'." But if the supply chain are to be brought onboard with the task of reducing whole-life cost, they will need some certainty about the length of whole-life expectancy that is being considered, and the factors that are being used in calculating the cost, says Keith Hayward of Hydro International. "Thus far, almost every water company I talk to has a different expectation, a different model and a different way of measuring it," says Hayward. "And as a supplier in the middle level of the supply chain, I can make any one of my products work properly in every kind of model, depending on what I factor in and what I don't. Which probably leads to a conclusion that, actually, none of the models we have at the moment are right." A whole-life-cost approach also requires a shi• in the current thinking about procurement, says Hayward. Currently, the emphasis is usually on squeezing the up-front cost in the procurement process, which hinders the supply chain from being engaged in a collaborative, long-term way. "Many assets are in the condition they are, and have the difficulties they have, because of a saving that was made when they were first purchased," says Hayward. "It was built in such a way that it would have a slightly lower cost, or so it could be done slightly earlier; and you're now finding how much that saving cost you. You might be able to build it for £100k less, but how much is that £100k going to cost you in five years' time? It's a good question, and it's something that is at least slowly being talked about." Greater standardization within water companies – if not yet across the industry – is one necessary step for better asset management in a Totex world. United Utilities is currently taking steps to 'hardwire' its operations and maintenance standards across the company, so that all the company's pumps, for example, will be maintained to the same standards which will be under the control of a specific range manager. These standards will feed into training, for apprentices and others, at the company, says Helen Samuels, Director of Engineering at UU. "That's where we're moving towards - asset management standards, operations and maintenance standards, rather than relying on our contracting partners to come up with an O&M manual and handing it to us and it's different from all the other ones," says Samuels. "The complexity of decision making in AMP6 is going to be much, much greater than anything we've experienced before. It is about making the correct whole-life cost decision, and certainly, we are now incentivised to do that, but there are so many other factors that impact our decision making. How do you roll in the impact of ODI [Outcome Delivery Incentive] pain and gain within that decision? How do you roll in the increases in environmental fines, and customer willingness to pay? Should we choose to spend more than our company business plan to avoid being penalised under an ODI, when our customer might not have signed up to that as something they are willing to pay for? It's really, really complex." Getting to grips with data More data and evidence is o•en seen as the key to better decision- making in this complex environment. However, it is not just more data about assets that is required, but useful information that management can then make decisions on, says Mark Higham of Siemens. "I think there's still some way to go in terms of getting the right data from what is obviously an enormous installed base, at various different stages in its life cycle, and getting all that data in a usable form," he says. "We're talking to customers about cloud-based services that would enable that sort of asset interrogation to be performed." Information should enable smarter condition monitoring and asset Nigel Earnshaw (Black & Veatch) and Sarah McMath (Thames Water) Andrew Eastwood of Northumbrian Water makes a point to participants

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