An evaluation of a water treatment plant with improved overall effectiveness as an objective

Abstract

The XYZ water Authority (Authority) supplies a population of approximately one million people with drinking water. This water is being produced by three water treatment plants and several independent well sites. The River water Treatment Plant (WTP), the Authority's largest and most modern of all three plants has been experiencing, over a period of ten years, severe and premature equipment failures which are causing process interruptions, production losses and high maintenance cost. These failures were attributed to lack of proper operations and maintenance procedures and practices. In an effort to rectify these maintenance and support problems, the Authority initiated this study for evaluating the current operations and maintenance (O&M) activities at the River WTP.

The purpose of this project is to identify the major deficiencies with the current O&M program and to recommend an approach for continuous improvement of plant performance. These recommendations employ some Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) concepts initially introduced by Japan. TPM is an integrated life-cycle approach related to production equipment. Investigations of the water industry revealed that until this date, the introduction and complete implementation of TPM to maintain equipment associated with water treatment in the U.S. has not been fully utilized. It was also determined by this study that a prerequisite for successful implementation of TPM is a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to be utilized for managing maintenance information. A brief description and implementation procedures of CMMS is also included in this report.