Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/929831
www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | XXXX 20XX | 13 www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | XXXX 20XX | 13 whether there is potential to incorporate these modular factory elements. The only practical limitation is transport – the item needs to be small enough to be trans- ported by road or to break down into parts which are transportable. However, a more fundamental chal- lenge is coming up with a design which is universal enough to satisfy the require- ments of multiple projects and clients. There are success stories here - Nomenca makes a packaged UV plant which is sup- plied to three different water companies, for example – but each water company has its own standards and so for the most part, cross-industry standardised designs for more complex items remain elusive. The membership organisation BuildOff- site contains a group of senior water indus- try professionals – the Water Hub - who are looking to change that. With involvement from most of the leading UK water com- panies and contractors, over the last three years it has been knowledge-sharing and working to overcome the barriers to offsite build, standardisation and Design for Manu- facture and Assembly (DfMA) in the sector. John Browne, DfMA lead at United Util- ities and one of the founder members of the Water Hub, says that a key challenge is building a commonality of standards and www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | FEBRUARY 2018 | 13 "If we want to achieve the Construction 2025 targets and deliver more for less, we need to make offsite build and standardisation happen. Water companies need to embrace it, enable it and lead the wider supply chain by demanding it." John Browne, DfMA lead, United Utilities "We need to listen to feedback and understand what our operations colleagues and other stakeholders want from offsite build and standard products… to listen to people's experiences to make any changes or enhancements to the products we have." Sharon Hamilton, Specialist Services Manager, Scottish Water "A standard product is by far the best way to capture best practice in the industry. Best practice is only best practice if it's repeated. If you've got factory thinking, offsite build and standardisation you've got a brilliant platform to develop that design going forward." Andy Culshaw, Preconstruction Director, Nomenca specifications. "Sometimes, water projects become a little bit more parochial and locally focused than they actually need to be," says Browne. "That goes hand in glove with the variation in what should arguably be common standards across the companies. The way we've evolved as an industry is that as well as meeting British and European standards, we've built up sets of company specific local stand- ards and harmonising these across the industry has so far proven a really difficult thing to do." The industry should not take a "closed view" of which products need to be standardised, but rather should listen to the supply chain and water company operations teams about where standard products can add value; there will always need to be bespoke solutions too, adds Browne. Modularising solutions will require supply chain companies to collaborate, he adds. For example, delivering a fully offsite pumping station requires a pump supplier, a kiosk supplier, and a panel supplier to evolve their products so that they can be fit- ted together and assembled in an optimum fashion. This implies not only collaboration but co-ordination. To help drive this in the water sector, Buildoffsite's Water Hub has put together • VIEWPOINTS a factory thinking 'roadmap' with work streams in six areas: each tackles a key challenge and will be collaboratively delivered with suppliers and contractors. The six streams are people and communi- cations, information management, stand- ard products, standard processes, supply chain collaboration, and efficiencies. Sharon Hamilton, Specialist Services Manager at Scottish Water and also a member of the Water Hub, says that utili- ties need to be consistent in communicat- ing the benefits of standard products and offsite build, while listening to feedback from delivery partners and suppliers. Until the factory approach achieves a critical mass then it may be difficult to demonstrate clear cost benefits at the individual project level, but the benefits to the customer of offsite build should not be underestimated. "We always need to keep the customer in the forefront of our minds," says Hamilton. "If there's a project which is going to take a year to deliver by using traditional methods but might only take six months to deliver if we use off-site manufacturing, we should be thinking about that, and how we can use standard products as much as possible to resolve service issues quickly and ensure we provide the best possible service."