Water & Wastewater Treatment

In Depth: Pumps and Totex Component pricing: a disposable dilemma S elling a pump or mixer that requires regular replacement of critical elements doesn't really adhere to the Totex concept. Yet just as we all seem to moan about the ridiculousness of buying expensive replacement razors and replacement print cartridges, this two-part pricing strategy still seem to sit comfortably with some water companies. Or does it? If capital value (or lowest bid wins) is meant to have been overtaken by genuine long-term total costs, then isn't it time more demands were made on pump and mixer manufacturers? At Landia we do sell spare parts, but that is not our business; so it is sometimes hard to comprehend why some choose products that are set up to fail, rather than buy from a designer and manufac- turer of equipment that is made to last - especially at a time when consulting engineers say they are adopting a rounder, longer term performance-based approach. One stand-out example of two-part pricing is fibreglass versus stainless steel. It begs the question as to whether treatment plant operators and those making final purchasing decisions are willing to accept that mixer impellers don't have to be disposable items? Perhaps more poignantly, it begs the question as to whether at the point of sale, the end-user is having it clearly and fairly explained to them, that unless used infrequently in a non- demanding application, the shiny new fibreglass impeller is almost certainly going to need to be replaced – li‡ing the supposedly cheaper option to an already far more costly purchase – with even more expense ahead. A meaningful, accountable contract When buying a mixer, for example, you may be told that that the impeller is going to last for 10 or 20 years. Fine, but how about getting that claim substantiated with a meaningful, When working out the whole-life cost of a pump or similar equipment, one variable is how oen components need to be replaced. Is it time this was built in to the pricing model? By Paul Davies Key Account Manager Landia UK A cracked-up fibreglass impeller 16 WWT PUMP SUPPLEMENT DECEMBER 2017

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