UTILITY IMPLEMENTS DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTION TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY & EFFECTIVENESS ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

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1 UTILITY IMPLEMENTS DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTION TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY & EFFECTIVENESS ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

2 Utility Implements Data Management Solution to Increase Efficiency & Effectiveness Anchorage, Alaska Business Profile The Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility (AWWU) is the largest water and wastewater utility in Alaska, serving Anchorage, Chugiak-Eagle River, Peters Creek, Eklutna and Girdwood. AWWU collects water from two (2) major surface watersheds, Eklutna Lake and Ship Creek, and several deep underground wells. The region is blessed with abundant, pristine water sources that numerous industries and more than 216,000 people rely upon. AWWU operates three (3) wastewater treatment plants and two (2) water treatment plants. The Ashland Wastewater Treatment Facility is designed to process 58 MGD; the Eagle River 2.5 MGD; and the Girdwood Wastewater Facility 1 MGD. The Elcomont Water Treatment Facility is designed for processing 35 MGD and the Ship Creek Water Treatment Facility 16 MGD. Altogether, AWWU oversees approximately 800 miles of water distribution, 60 pressure zones, 60 million gallons of storage and between remote facilities. Business Situation AWWU s mission is to support the public health, safety and economic interests of the community by providing quality Water and Wastewater services in a responsible, efficient and sustainable manner. AWWU leadership recognized that in order to fulfill this mission, they needed to ensure that process improvements and decisions were made based on trusted information that could be easily and quickly compiled. AWWU s specific areas of concern: Manually entering data from multiple spreadsheets was highly inefficient and made comprehensive operational visibility virtually unattainable. Data security was in question, data validation was excessively time-consuming, and data delivery to third-parties was cumbersome and costly. AWWU needed a tool that could standardize data collection, storage, analysis and reporting across its organization, as well as be customizable for the specific needs of each facility. As with all public utilities, compliance, reporting and sustaining business operations, as well as enabling growth, are essential. AWWU identified that it needed a system to help extend its stellar compliance history while simplifying analysis and reporting. As service excellence and employee productivity are interdependent, AWWU sought a solution that would give its personnel the tools they needed to focus their efforts on high-value tasks. Solution AWWU Director Craig Woolard implemented Hach s Water Information Management Solution TM (Hach WIMS TM ) to ensure the utility is able to overcome these challenges and achieves the desired service excellence. Woolard frames up the challenge he and his colleagues faced each day prior to the implementation of Hach WIMS: We have thousands of pieces of information. It s almost an impossible endeavor to keep up on how

3 everything operates or works in conjunction with other parts of the plant. With the Hach WIMS system you are able to see it all in a useful way. AWWU is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the water distribution system, water quality and laboratory analysis. In addition, the company is responsible for industrial pre-treatment programs, preventative maintenance and compliance reporting. Hach WIMS provides AWWU the ability to instantly access performance data from a day, week, month or year, simplifying the task and significantly reducing the time involved in all areas of responsibility. Data from all the facilities flows to the enterprise-wide Hach WIMS central database. AWWU then uses this data to generate reports on identified key performance indicators (KPIs), including such items as transmittance and process control variables, unit energy use and chemical and polymer consumption. Within the first six (6) months of implementation, AWWU already realizes the benefits. Woolard and his team better understand where they need to direct efforts for improvements that impact the facilities as well as the surrounding community. We ve collected enough data to be able to look at trends and improve process performance. We not only can run more efficiently than before, but also more effectively. It definitely has a net positive environmental impact. Woolard recounts a specific example of how AWWU is able to pinpoint process deficiencies with the use of Hach WIMS. I was at the Eagle River facility meeting with the operators to discuss process control issues that had surfaced. In a matter of minutes, we were able to access the trend data and address the concerns. Before Hach WIMS, it would have been a multi-day effort. Approximately sixty (60) AWWU personnel use Hach WIMS regularly and users vary in roles from multi-level operators, foremen, and senior management to personnel in accounting and finance. Hach WIMS developers created a link to allow the finance department to access vital financial information which now permits them to better understand the operational expenditures and build business cases to support ongoing decisions. The system has gotten universal acceptance, with increasing requests for data access coming in. AWWU deployed Hach WIMS at each of its facilities, tailoring the system to meet each one s varying requirements. In each instance, Hach personnel worked directly with facility superintendents to understand their needs and to develop the initial input forms and reports. Upon completion of Hach s comprehensive training course, AWWU users were then able to further customize the information that they compiled. The fundamental problem it solves is correlating and visualizing data from a hundred

4 different spreadsheets, Woolard says. We can enter the data into the central database, and then every user can extract it in their own customized way. Another feature of WIMS is remote accessibility. Now, secure access is available via the Internet from any location, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When an organization makes an enterprise-wide change in daily operations, there is an associated challenge of convincing the staff that the change is for the better. This is not a concern with Hach WIMS. Customized data entry forms that are built to look just like the paper logs the team used before makes this transition much easier. I have been pleasantly surprised at the buy-in we have received from the newest level-one operator to the most experienced level-four operator, says Woolard. Showing our team right off the bat that you could take a whole year s worth of parameters and report them within seconds really helped people to buy-in quickly. Benefits The number one difference that implementing Hach WIMS has made for our group is that we now have time to actually analyze the data we collect, says Rob Gustafson, Superintendant of the Water Quality Group. WIMS integrates with the SCADA data, aggregated into a central historian, to collect relevant data for reporting and analysis. Prior to Hach WIMS, AWWU searched for exceedances in SCADA and highlighted them to analyze problems; a tedious and time-consuming process. Now it can be done with the push of a button. Secure, Validated Data Validating data from all the facilities, as well as information provided from disparate sources like instruments, SCADA systems, and field and laboratory spreadsheets, was a difficult task. Woolard first addressed the issue of data integrity: When your primary data collection mechanism is collating data from multiple spreadsheets in different facilities, collected by different spreadsheet systems, you naturally call the data into question. Furthermore, the data was not secure. The spreadsheet contained 365 tabs for daily data which was then reconciled into monthly or annual reports. Not only was there great room for error, but many times the spreadsheets were corrupted. A formal review and approval strategy did not exist due to the volume of data and on-going daily responsibilities. With WIMS, the superintendent of each facility can look at the data on a daily or weekly basis and validate and approve it, Woolard explains. Now, we know the numbers are correct and we can use them for analysis and compliance reporting with confidence. Process Improvements and Operational Transparency The ability to easily verify data from the thousands of sources and in varying formats has improved quality assurance/quality control, and led to observations that otherwise may not have been made. Rob Gustafson expands on Woolard s remarks in regard to valid data: We found that we had misplaced decimal places on a couple of our values. Half of the facility thought we were measuring gas usage in standard cubic feet, when we were actually measuring it in hundred cubic feet. Visualizing the data allowed us to quickly resolve the issue. In the process of implementing Hach WIMS, we asked a number of questions that had never been asked and found a few things that weren t quite right.

5 Using the trending function to analyze and compare data in unique ways has also helped AWWU manage the activated sludge process. AWWU noticed a correlation between Mixed Liquor Suspended Solids (MLSS) and UV transmittance. When MLSS values were down, so was the UV transmittance. As a result, AWWU was able to balance the MLSS to the appropriate level to optimize the process and to prevent deteriorating effluent. Having Hach WIMS available to analyze AWWA s activated sludge treatment process provided an additional way to examine the activated sludge system process for ammonia removal and effluent turbidities, which, as Woolard, says, is extremely important because the activated sludge process is critical to our compliance. Hach WIMS saves large amounts of time in managing the waste sludge process and generating the air report. The report used to take an individual at least a week and up to a month to create. Previously, it was one of the processes in which we would have to search for data in the database and then we would have to highlight numbers and hand-calculate them, said Woolard. Now, it is completely automated with Hach WIMS which saves us weeks a year and allows the utility to run at its best. The system is used to easily generate compliance reports like DMRs, Air reports and turbidity reports for the AWOP (Area Wide Optimization Partnership) program as well as for optimization projects like minimizing chemical costs and automated analysis and reporting of water demand. WIMS also makes the Partnership for Safe Water report filing a breeze. This report use to take 2-3 hours or better to complete, and is now completed in about an hour. Trend graphs compare areas like UV transmittance and MLTSS to better anticipate and plan for demand. Using an ipad for manual plant data entry makes it easy to automatically capture data. Cuts Costs for New Equipment Design Like most facilities, as demand increased and the plant needed to improve to meet that demand, engineering firms were called upon to spec new equipment. AWWU has spent thousands of dollars with consulting firms to compile data from a myriad of spreadsheets and then create reports and trend analyses that were used for design purposes. This expense will not be incurred again. When it comes time for the next design project to upgrade, we ll be able to provide the data quickly and efficiently, with confidence in its accuracy, says Gustafson. And that will save the utility a lot of money. Conclusion

6 Superior data collection, visualization and accuracy are all significant advantages for AWWU, providing the information needed to optimize processes and more easily address compliance and reporting. However, and perhaps most importantly, WIMS has empowered the entire staff to focus on higher value activities. The fact is, says Woolard, it adds value to the organization. It helps us advance as an organization and provide better service to the customer. That s the value. Results One more thing, he adds, It just makes life easier. Reinforced efforts to continually improve service, fulfill company vision; gained universal acceptance and is integral part of operations Enabled employees to shift focus to higher level activities, not data entry, easily saving tens of thousands of dollars in unproductive labor costs Prepares AWWU for Alaska s adoption of electronic reporting Reporting deadlines easily achieved Saved over three months in prep time to generate reports and manual data logging Cut costs for responding to third-party data needs Exposed operational inefficiencies and process errors; audit trails, standard built-in calculations helped provide consistency and accuracy Saves weeks at a time in managing the activated sludge process and generating the air report Established higher data security, integrity Improved visibility into plant-wide and enterprise-wide operations Getting increased requests for system access