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5 Steps to Lean Water OperationsTransforming data into

information is critical to success

Chuck Scholpp

Director, Integrated Information Management

Hach Company

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Today’s Growing Challenges

• Budgets are tight– Treatment costs are increasing– Infrastructure investments going unfunded– Raising rates is difficult

• New regulations are coming at a fast pace

• Retiring workforce = knowledge loss

Everyone is being asked to do more with less but how?

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Addressing Water/Wastewater Industry Challenges with “Lean” Concepts

Five Steps to Enable Lean

1. Create lean culture

2. Take holistic approach

3. Automate manual processes

4. Achieve Lean sustainability

5. Put it all together

“Lean applies in every business and every process.

It is not a tactic or a cost reduction, but a way of

thinking and acting for an entire organization.”

- Lean Institute

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Step 1: Create a Lean Culture

• Cross-functional “Kaizens Bursts” to solve problems

• Gain alignment around processes, process data, and constraints

• Monthly cross-functional operations review meetings

• Freedom to question status quo; Asking 5-Whys

• Teach to “speak with data”

With changing workforce, years of operator experience being the requisite to performing the job must morph into a data-driven approach

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Step 2: Take Holistic Approach to Water Operations

• Develop process maps (current and future state)

– Identify process steps

– Gather quantifiable data• Ex. Inventory, quality, cycle time,

# of people involved, costs

– Identify 8 common wastes• Motion, inventory, waiting, quality defects,

over-processing, transportation,

overproduction, and unused creativity

– Eliminate muda (waste)• Any action that adds time, effort,

cost but no value

– Optimize value-added steps

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Step 3: Automate Manual Processes

• Replace manual with software-based data gathering and info reporting

– Allows increased focus on “holistic” view

– Frees up time for value-added work

– Reduces errors

• EPA moving to electronic reporting in all states

• Efficiently drives collaborative analysis and decisions across business, enterprise, or ecosystem

Empowers the utility to do more

with less and simplifies the task of providing state

and federal regulators with the reports they need

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Step 4: Achieve Lean Sustainability

• Lean is a systematic approach to solving problems

• Continuous improvement mentality

• Data-driven decisions drive optimized solutions

• Visual management of metrics is critical

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Step 5: Put It All Together

Hach WIMS™ can help!

• Lean Culture: Prioritize cross-functional, holistic problem solving over gathering data:

• Data Gathering: Spend less time gathering and more time analyzing

• Data Analysis: Process mapping, data mining, statistics, water calcs. Apply focus where it belongs:

– System upsets– Cost overruns– Compliance issues– Customer complaints

• Reporting: Use dashboards and reports to achieve sustainability, prevent future issues from occurring, and meet regulations

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Gather and Organize Data for Immediate Access and Analysis

Manual Data Entry:

•If manual data entry is necessary, enter it directly into software thereby eliminating multiple-transcriptions

Automated Data Entry:• Download data directly from

instruments

• SCADA / HMI / Historians

• Dataloggers

• LIMS

• Commercial Lab Reports

• Other Third Party Software

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Combine Data from Field, Lab and Operations

• Configure graphs for trend analysis, correlations, and control charting

• Compare various sets of data to identify cost reduction opportunities

Ex. Raw Turbidity Daily Avg, Daily Min,Daily Max

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Monitor On-Going Performance• Visual management provides easy sustained monitoring

– Customize dashboards for different levels of the organization

– Enable quick retrieval of reports, graphs, and entry forms

– Make review of data & information part of every day culture

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Case StudyUnited Water Numerous drinking and waste water plants across the US

• Developed a corporate strategy to improve performance and meet increasingly complex regulations at its over 400 operating locations

• United Water had been using multiple legacy reporting systems which made it difficult to monitor performance in a consistent manner at all of its facilities

• Corporate priority to install enterprise version of Hach WIMS across all facilities

• WIMS is now serving as United Water’s central nervous system, allowing UW to:o evaluate performance of each facility using consistent metrics

o automatically consolidate data from all facilities

o automatically produce reports – regulatory, KPI, and internal compliance

• Internal champions were selected

• Invested in training

?

!

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Case StudyLittleton / Englewood 50MGD Waste Water Plant

• Data collection and reporting was a full-time role, YET…

• Data collected was incomplete and difficult to access

• In the 90’s, plant averaged 2 permit violations per year

• Consolidated info from SCADA, LIMS, laboratory, and field instrumentation

• Automated incoming data entry and checks (increases data accuracy)

• Automated and centralized data reporting (drives cross-functional decision making)

• Zero permit violations = $0 in fines (formally a budgeted line item)

• 1,600 hours annually freed up by automated data entry

• 240 hours annually freed up from preparing regulatory filings

• $300K annual reduction in energy and chemical costs

• Used to justify smaller plant expansion than previously envisioned

?

!

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Case StudyCity of Gastonia16MGD Drinking Water Plant

• Reduced basic data entry and reporting time from 65% to <10 percent

• Over $60,000 savings from reduced treated water losses and chemical costs

• Helps Plant and City Managers navigate political waters with accurate data

• Monitor KPIs leveraging automated reports and dashboards

• Data is now easily accessible to make meaningful operational decisions

• Information tracking and report generating was a huge task

• Basic data entry and reporting took ~ 65 percent of an individual’s time

• Complex analysis rarely got done?

!

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Case StudyBoulder, CO 2 Drinking Water Plants (total 55MGD)

• Existing SCADA and LIMS solutions not sufficient for easily analyzing data

• Gathering and reporting data was time-consuming and cumbersome

• Automated data gathering

• Automated and centralized KPIs and other reports into visual dashboards

• Leveraged trend & correlation data to drive continuous improvement

• Visualization catches issues before they become problems

• >$20,000 annual reduction on chemical spend

• Using WIMS to find root cause of recent $200K increase in residual hauling

• Producing higher quality water in an environmentally responsible way

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!

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Summary

• Today’s reality: – Budgets are shrinking

– Regulations are increasing

– Workforce is aging

• Water and wastewater utilities must further streamline their processes and improve operational efficiencies1. Create a lean culture

2. Take a holistic approach to operations

3. Automate manual processes

4. Achieve Lean Sustainability

5. Put it all together

• Hach WIMS™ software enables Lean Operations and allows better monitoring, reporting and managing of water resources

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Contact Information

 

Chuck ScholppDirector, Integrated Information Management BU

w.970.663.1377 ext 2547 | c.970.443.1637

Hach Company

cscholpp@hach.com

Download a white paper on Lean Water Operations

and learn more about Hach WIMS™ by visiting:

www.hachwims.com