35th Annual Tri-State Seminar Recap

Pinnacle’s water & wastewater team presented and exhibited last week at the 35^th Annual Tri-State Seminar, August 6^th-8^th in Las Vegas, NV! Our Principal of Water Services, Paul Hughes, Project Manager, Ben Dutro, Solutions Analyst, Laura Hudson, and Project Manager, Amy De La Salle, were active in the exhibit hall and technical sessions to help bring back some of the most popular topics from the seminar.

The Tri-State Seminar provides training and certification classes for water, wastewater and storm water industry professionals across California, Nevada and Arizona.  This year, Tri-State decided to change things up by hosting the event in early August, to avoid conflicting with WEFTEC2019, which in return brought together even more preeminent speakers and vendors for three days of educational opportunities.

Throughout the event, attendees had access to workshops, awards, special events, technical sessions and professional networking opportunities within the exhibition hall. The technical sessions and workshops were tailored to help each attendee learn about new techniques, regulations and advancements within each industry. This year’s tracks included:

• Maintenance
• Wastewater treatment
• Safety/Health/Security
• Top Ops-Leadership
• Water distribution

As a part of the Maintenance track, Laura & Ben were proud to present, Improving Operational Outcomes with Reliability Centered Design, on Thursday, August 8^th at 7:30am to a packed-out house. Check out their abstract:

The design phase of a project is a fraction of its lifecycle cost, yet the project design sets the inherent reliability of the facility for the entirety of its lifespan. Maintenance can only maintain up to this inherent reliability. RCD helps improve inherent reliability before construction, with enormous potential lifecycle savings as a result.

Four years ago, we began working with a regional wastewater treatment facility undergoing process expansion from secondary to tertiary treatment facility. This ~$2B project is at the halfway point, and we can report on Reliability Centered Design (RCD) recommendations for major unit processes to illustrate the value of RCD. Recommendations include monitoring tasks, baseline assessments and process control enhancements. In addition, critical capital spares and design review have improved the inherent reliability of the design.

This discussion covers key elements of RCD, why designing for reliability is critical to lifecycle costs, and a status update illustrating the value of RCD for the project. In conclusion, we discuss the next steps and how to transition from RCD to a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) asset management program.

In addition, Paul, Ben and Amy held down the fort at booth #119 in the exhibit hall where they engaged with a handful of attendees including operators, engineers and high-level executives on the topics below. Check out our resources to learn more:

• Reliability Centered Design (RCD)
  • Webinar: Designing for Reliability & Value with RCD
• Comprehensive Asset Management Programs
  • Web Page: Comprehensive Reliability Solutions
• Justifying Reliability Initiatives
  • Webinar: Five Steps to Justify Reliability Improvement Initiatives

All in all, we had a great time once again at the seminar and are looking forward to returning to Las Vegas again next year! Interested in receiving a copy of the presentation? Fill out the form below and we will reach out with a downloadable copy.