WET News

2 WET NEWS FEBRUARY COMMENT "Factory thinking can promote innovation, rather than stifling it" FEBRUARY £4M Scottish Water customers in Stoer and the surrounding area in the West Highlands now have their water supplied via a new £4M nano-… ltration membrane treatment plant. "Guy's appointment is a clear signal of our intention to invest in EnTrade and he will be a wonderful addition to our team" Wessex Water's David Elliott on the appointment of Natural England's Guy Thompson as Environmental services company EnTrade's new Managing Director. "It soon became apparent that an easy … x couldn't be undertaken" Wessex Water's Paul Musselwhite after it became the fi rst company in the UK to deliver a pressure main liner to the new international standard for cured-in-place pipes under pressure. £120k Beronhill Ltd has been … ned £120,000 for dumping chemicals into Severn Trent's sewers. The company pleaded guilty to charges of breaching limits for cyanide, zinc and chemical oxygen demand (COD) at Wolverhampton Crown Court. "This award demonstrates our commitment to minimising the environmental impact of our operations" Morrison Utility Services' Paul Kerridge after successfully maintaining CEMARS (Carbon and Energy Management And Reduction Scheme) Gold status certifi cation. "We were able to con… gure the LiDAR survey to meet our requirements" Sophie Slade, Consultant Hydraulic Modeller at Atkins Global, on using aerial laser mapping technology to investigate fl ooding in Wiltshire £6.5M A multi-million-pound initiative to use water that has … lled underground mine workings in Caerau, Wales, as a geothermal source of energy has been awarded a £6.5M EU grant. Going off site and instilling factory thinking T his issue of WET News contains a great example of how o• site build can combine with standard products to make water industry construction quicker and more e• cient. Nomenca's project for A• nity Water (p10) deployed a modular pumping station that was built entirely o• site in a factory environment. You may be forgiven for wondering why manufacturing principles are something that the water industry would want to aspire to. Surely solving the water challenges of today and tomorrow requires creative thought, technical innovation and bespoke engineering expertise, rather than the mass production of identical units? However, 'factory thinking' can in fact promote innovation and problem-solving, as well as unlocking a host of bene‹ ts on cost, productivity, worker safety and reduced customer disruption. Standardised designs for products and assets that answer a common need across the industry can both spread best practice and allow a platform for further innovation and improvements to take place, with the help of the supply chain. There are already some great examples of this thinking permeating the water sector: the Buildo• site Water Hub, in particular, are leading collaborative work across the industry and discussing how to break down barriers to standardisation. Standardisation is a crucial step to maximising the gains from o• site build: each water company has its own, o' en di• ering standards, and unpicking the reasons for these di• erences in order to arrive at a consensus for a standardised product is a daunting task. Standardised designs may meet with resistance in some quarters – not only from engineers who believe that their local way of doing things is the best, but from anyone involved with a project who has a professional tendency to want to create their own unique designs. This cultural resistance might be linked to insecurity about mechanisation and robots taking jobs; if so, the fears are unfounded. An analogy could be drawn with the car industry, where having a standardised design for the basic workings of a motor (and many other aspects of a vehicle) has meant that human ingenuity does not have to be applied to the basics, but can be employed to make individual car models faster, more fuel e• cient, longer lasting or better looking. Greater standardisation within water would be welcome news for the supply chain, which would be able to sell with greater con‹ dence and e• ciency across multiple clients; but in order to make factory thinking a reality, suppliers of di• erent kinds will need to collaborate on how their kit could ‹ t together into modular units. Moreover, getting the approach o• the ground may mean that the ‹ rst projects in particular product types will not be any cheaper than traditional construction – so a degree of faith and determination in the direction of travel is required from all concerned. In order to reap the bene‹ ts of factory thinking, e• ort is required across the board, but the potential rewards are immense. IN A NUTSHELL N orthumbrian Water has improved the speed with which it responds to cus- tomers' call-outs relating to me- ters, following a pilot for a new automated planning system. The company has trialled the new system within its Meter Field Services team in the North East of England and, following impressive results, is launching the same system in its Essex & Su• olk Water operations in the South East at the start of 2018. The potential to expand to other parts of the business is also being investigated, a' er the Meter Field Services team reduced the average number of jobs outstanding from between 1,000 and 1,500 to just 60. The pilot has also seen an average 30% increase in the number of daily jobs completed by the team. From an average of nine jobs per day, per person, the team is now achieving 13, with one month seeing that daily ‹ gure reach 19. Additionally, the per-trip travel time has dropped from a 16-minute average to 13 min- utes, while journeys of more than 30 minutes have been reduced by 15%. The automa- tion has also meant that man- power in planning has reduced from being an individual's T he Environment Agency has issued a temporary winter drought permit to Southern Water, to help re‹ ll Bewl Water reservoir in East Sussex. The water company made an application on 5 January stating it needed to take more water from the River Medway to help re‹ ll Bewl Water, which was only 42% full at the start of the year. Despite a wet December, the autumn was very dry. There was also lower-than-average rainfall across south-east England dur- ing the previous winter. This prolonged dry period across the region has le' many groundwa- ter supplies and some reser- voirs lower than normal for the time of year. Bewl Water is the largest res- ervoir in the south east of Eng- land and can hold 31,000 mil- lion litres of water. It is an important source for Southern Water, which manages the sup- ply of water to over 2.5 million customers across south and south-east England. Southern Water already routinely takes water from the River Medway to ‹ ll the reservoir. The change to the permit will allow the com- pany to abstract additional water until the end of March. The change wil l mean ¥ Pilot sees average 30% increase in the number of daily jobs completed by Meter Field Services team. ¥ Utility given permission to re… ll Sussex reservoir after dry autumn months leave resource levels low for time of year Automated planning helps speed up meter work Southern Water issued precautionary drought permit full-time job to 45 minutes a day, freeing up resource. The company's 11 North East-based meter technicians, who investigate customer bill- ing enquiries and carry out a range of other jobs in the ‹ eld, take care of between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs per month, a ‹ gure that is mirrored by the nine team members in Essex and Su• olk. Northumbrian Metering Manager Andrew Ledger said: "Changes that have come from the automated planning include a removal of strict boundaries of operation for each member of the team, as well as drip-feeding individual jobs instead of delivering a list of the whole day's work at the start of each shi' . "This takes the pressure o• Southern Water can take water when river levels are lower than the previous limit. The water company has requested the change as part of its plan to secure public water supplies for the upcoming summer. In determining the drought permit application, the Envi- ronment Agency has taken into account the very low rainfall, the impact this has had on water supplies, as well as con- sidering the response to the recent public consultation. Julie Foley, Environment Agency Area Director, said: "Although it has been wet over the past few weeks, overall this winter across south east Eng- land there has been lower-than- average amounts of rain. Con- sequently, we now need above average rainfall for the the team members in terms of planning the work, making it easier for them to deliver unri- valled service to each customer. By drip-feeding the jobs, the system also has increased ¨ exi- bility, meaning we are getting to customers much more quickly. "The Mobile Workforce Man- agement system so' ware is also smart enough to look at where each worker is located and their particular skills-set, so it can assign jobs throughout the day that suit their position, ‹ lling in between appointments. "Our average for the number of jobs we have outstanding has dropped massively, which means we are getting to more customers, more quickly, and we are building resilience through greater ¨ exible working." remainder of the winter to replenish our water resources. "The Environment Agency has to balance the water needs of people, businesses and wild- life so we have carefully consid- ered Southern Water's applica- tion. We have decided to grant this temporary change to the existing licence, helping the company to re‹ ll the reservoir at a time of year when there will be less impact on the environ- ment. We will carefully monitor any e• ects and take action if needed to ensure the environ- ment is protected. "We encourage people to fol- low advice from their water company about saving water. Using water e• ciently will help ensure we have enough water for people, businesses and the environment." "Factory thinking

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