Learn how we helped a California wastewater treatment facility reduce their costs by 60 percent as a result of a RCM implementation.
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Learn how we helped a California wastewater treatment facility reduce their costs by 60 percent as a result of a RCM implementation.
In California, a wastewater treatment facility serves a small local community of under 20,000.
95 percent of treated wastewater is reused during the dry season—thus, reliability of the wastewater treatment plant is of utmost importance.
With RCM implementation by Pinnacle experts, total costs have been reduced by 60 percent.
A California wastewater treatment facility serves a small local community of under 20,000, as well as other community service organizations. This wastewater treatment facility is a state-of-the-art membrane bioreactor plant (MBR) that includes fine screening headworks process, full nitrification-denitrification treatment, biosolids drying, chlorine contact disinfection, and subsurface effluent disposal fields. The plant was designed to treat a maximum daily flow of 500,000 gallons per day.
During the wet weather season the community reuses approximately 30 percent of its treated wastewater, and during the dry season the recycle water reuse jumps up to 95. This variation is due to California’s lack of rainfall in summer months. Moreover, when dry summer months are coupled with California’s ever-changing drought conditions, reliability of the wastewater treatment plant becomes of the utmost importance to this environmentally sensitive community.
Due to the annual cost of contract operations, facility leadership recognized an opportunity to reduce annual spending by taking plant operations in-house. Shortly thereafter, the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) staff began to face challenges in three key
areas:
Staff at the facility were unable to resolve these issues on their own, so the leadership engaged Pinnacle to perform a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in order to gain control and a better understanding of the process.
Upon completion of the RCA, the following opportunities were identified:
After the success in resolving immediate process control issues, facility leadership requested further assistance to build a reliable O&M program to reduce future problems. Pinnacle’s solution was to apply the principles of Reliability Centered Maintenance to O&M activities in order to:
Pinnacle entered into an O&M contract to operate, maintain, and manage the water and wastewater facilities. As a contracted O&M partner, Pinnacle helped the community develop an RCM-based strategy to operate and maintain the plant.
Pinnacle evaluated the personnel requirements for the facility. This included optimizing staff and bringing in seasoned Grade-V operators that embraced the total productive maintenance (TPM) philosophy to train and mentor O&M staff. These seasoned operators were kept as advisors to O&M staff once training was complete.
A Failure Consequence Analysis (FCA) was conducted to determine the consequential criticality for each of the unit processes. The FCA was conducted with the involvement of O&M staff and used as a form of training. This step optimized laboratory testing and operator round duties.
A Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was performed to determine the risk criticality for all treatment process equipment. The FMEA was also conducted with the involvement of O&M staff and used as a form of training.
Pinnacle reevaluated and optimized the safety program put in place by the previous O&M contractor. A full safety review by Pinnacle safety officers was completed and new standards were adopted.
An RCA was performed to determine the underlying cause of process failures and foaming. This analysis also served as process control training for O&M staff. As a result of the analysis, adjustments were made to process control strategies to resolve underlying issues.
With reliability built into the operations systems, the next steps focused on implementing RCM into the maintenance systems, as well as integrating the documents and procedures into the community’s Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). These steps included:
In 2015, Pinnacle began contract operations for this community, with a focus on implementing RCM methodologies into the facility’s O&M program. As of 2017, the facility is close to full implementation of an RCM program, and as a result, dramatic improvements have been made to facility performance. Overall, the benefits seen by this community include:
With the improvements made by Pinnacle, and the gradual implementation of an RCM program, total costs to the community have seen a 60 percent reduction between 2012 and 2017, with additional improvements expected when all elements of the program are fully implemented.
A more in-depth breakdown of cost savings includes: