water quality and system

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initially and checked, and then the system can operate with minor trouble-shooting.

One of the problems with startups is that it takes a few days for an entire system to "work out the bugs." During this time, pressures are fluctuating, power is being turned on and off and new people are looking at and "fiddling with" the new equipment. This activity leads to some unexpected headaches for the facility manager and it is a specialty field for many engineers and electronics technicians. Some like startups, and some do not.

Filter Equipment Tests - Equipment tests for filters are similar to the tests for water softeners: Leak tests, controls tests and finally a full-performance demonstration. Water purification equipment must be tested to ensure it removes particles and fine materials, but no facility wants to put debris into the system just to be assured the filters will work. The test procedure should be written out in advance and the facility manager would then review the plan for the test, agree to it, and then the actual tests proceed.

Chlorinator Testing - Chlorinators and other water purification equipment requires lab test equipment to make sure the water has the right amount of chlorine in it.

Samples may have to be sent to the lab or a small test lab set up with the chlorinator just for the test. Ozone and ultraviolet tests are conducted with similar equipment.

Water Heating Equipment Tests - Water heating equipment tests are conducted in a similar way to the equipment performance tests, although additional measurements are taken of the fuel consumed during the performance test. The consumed fuel readings are used to calculate the efficiency of the equipment.

The facility wants to keep a record of this test because as his water heating equipment ages, various energy loss elements affect the efficiency of the unit. With documentation of the efficiency from when the equipment was new, the facility can determine when to schedule tank cleanings and burner checks to keep the equipment operating at peak efficiency.

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Test Results

The results of testing are a facility manager's tool to keep the equipment running in top shape. They protect the facility from liability and keep the maintenance force on its toes. Once the systems are in, tested and running, the facility manager has to make sure the systems are well-maintained. In the next chapter, we will review some tips for maintenance operations to keep the systems running smoothly and save the facility money in the long run.

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Chapter 14

Maintenance

Throughout this book, attempts have been made to indicate where maintenance can be easily facilitated during the design, operation or construction of a water system. The overall goal and objective of the system is providing good service to the customers. After design, maintenance is the key to the facility manager's success for a smooth operating water system.

Elements of Maintenance

There are essentially two kinds of maintenance activities. Preventive maintenance is checking the system, making sure it is running smoothly, lubrication, changing filters and other routine tasks. In addition to preventive maintenance, there are repairs that must be completed.

Repair projects, however, can be minimized if the preventive maintenance is successful. For example, checking a pump is preventive maintenance, while replacing it because it failed could be considered non-routine maintenance. Managing maintenance activities requires the skillful combination of routine preventive maintenance and properly scheduling and conducting non-routine maintenance.

The manager uses labor, materials and tools to perform maintenance. His success or failure depends to some extent upon the effectiveness of his use of these resources.

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Labor

To successfully maintain a facility water system, the manager must bring together the right combination of labor. Labor, the people who work on the system, must be empowered with a strong sense of authority and responsibility. In a sense, they own it. The facility manager must turn over to the staff some of the authority to see that the work gets done. The manager must see to it that the workers are properly trained and that they have the necessary skills. The workers must know where all the valves and pumps are, and how to get to the equipment needed. In addition, they must have the confidence that they are capable of doing a good job. Pride and accomplishment plays a major role in the successful maintenance of any system.

The labor force in turn must have confidence in the management. That is, the workmen and women have to believe that if they tell the manager something is needed, the manager will see to it that it will be done. Often, a manager relies on foremen to manage the craft. Foremen are the sergeants of operation, responsible for daily prioritizing tasks, coordinating materials and labor activities.

Materials

Materials management is difficult given the modern state of technology and its continuous change. Manufacturers continuously and rapidly change their equipment and they are changing the salespeople even more rapidly. The dynamics of the industry make it difficult to keep the necessary repair parts in stock for a facility.

In addition, given the modern structure of the organization, the authority to purchase materials is often held at a high levelsome-times, even beyond the facility manager's control. For successful water system repair, the maintenance staff must have the correct

part. They must know where it is needed, how to get it, and how to install it properly so that it works correctly the first time.

The question of how much spares to keep on hand is a difficult one. Some vendors sell cheap equipment and do not stock the necessary spare parts for repairing it. Others attempt to sell a huge spare parts repair kit along with the equipment when it is not really necessary.

This problem is compounded in a facility where there is little space for storing the spare supplies. In an ideal system, the worker knows exactly where the repair parts are stored, he is able to access them quickly, has seen them before and knows how to install

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them. If there is no warehousing of spares or if the warehousing is not very well organized, the worker cannot locate the repair parts and time is lost looking for them.

Tools

Many of the same things that can be said for spare parts can be said for tools. The maintenance staff must have an adequate supply of the right toolswrenches, saws, drills, etc.to fix and repair water system equipment. For a utility, tools would include large items such as digging machines. Many tools have a consumable elementfor example drill bits break and backhoes must be refueled. These tool consumables must be accounted for and replaced in any water management system.

Also included in the category of tools are personal protective equipment necessary for performing the work safely. Personal protective equipment could be a welding hood for a welder or a respirator and gloves for patching paint coatings or doing tile work.

The successful manager brings these elements together in a cohesive pattern. He is successful in creating a system where labor, materials and tools are focused on the mission to maintain and repair the water system so that it consistently serves occupants well.

The major element of success for a facility manager is to optimize what is called ''hands-on-tools-time" because this is the clearest evidence of where the three elements of labor, materials and tools come together. A facility manager should encourage hands-on-tools-time, reward it when he sees it and chastise workers when he does not see it.

There are hundreds of excuses for not seeing hands-on-tools-time. Looking for parts, waiting for permission to shutdown, not having the right personal protective equipment, taking a break, talking with the boss, talking with the secretary, ordering parts and checking out tools are all necessary in the course of a work day. But loss of efficiency soon gets out of control even in well-run organizations. If the craftsman is waiting on parts, he can grab a broom and sweep, he can sharpen knives, he can clean paint rollers. There is always plenty of hands-on-tools-time that can be done.

Work Order System

The successful combination of the three elements of labor, materials and tools can be managed through the use of a work order

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system. Each repair, job or preventive maintenance inspection can be accounted for and tracked.

Many work order systems are commercially available that run on personal computer systems. Some are even available in the public domain, although they may be more difficult to find and operate than to purchase a marketed one.

Work order systems generate work order forms, keep track of equipment in a database, are capable of tracking and identifying trends, and record the number of labor hours assigned against the number of labor hours available.

The work order system starts with Preventive Maintenance Inspections and Preventive Maintenance Examinations, sometimes shown in abbreviated forms as PMI/PMEs.

When a new facility is constructed, all of the installed equip-ment-i.e., the pumps, the filters, the heaters, chlorinators and other itemscomes from the manufacturer with an operations and maintenance (O&M) manual.

Inside the manual, there are recommended intervals for routine inspections. For example, a service manual on a pump may say to lubricate the bearing every 14 days.

In a work order system, the task to lubricate this pump would be generated as a work order. Work orders can be self-generated by the repairman or, in the case of large facilities, a special position called a work scheduler prepares the work orders and makes sure they are closed out when completed. ^ typical work order form is shown in Figure 14-1.

The other type of work orders come from the building's occupants. A call comes in for a repair. A work order is generated that, in effect, directs the repair work. These repair work orders are sometimes open-ended, since the total amount of work, materials, and tools is unknown until after the repair work has been assessed.

The work order should estimate the time required to complete to work and it should indicate the tools necessary to perform the work. In addition, many facilities add a small tools charge to help budget for small tool replacement and consumables. The facility manager decides how much of this responsibility to delegate to the foremen or to the individual laborers.

Inventory

In theory, a good work order tracking system can be tied to a good inventory system. This way, if the work order requires the use

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of pump seals, the inventory system automatically subtracts one set of seals from the inventory.

However, a system like this almost never works well in a practical application, they are expensive to establish and they break down when parts are back-ordered or are no longer available.

They do work well for specialized types of projects, but for a large water system that includes multiple subsystems like hot water, wastewater, water treatment and storage, they have not proven effective.

Most successful facilities have a separate inventory control system and delegate the repair parts decisions to the labor force. The craft decides which repair parts are necessary and requests them from inventory. A warehouse person issues the parts and records the changes in stock levels. When the level runs low, new spares are ordered.

The process of inventory control is a difficult one for any facility manager. The dollar value of the stock in spares can be significant and higher management cannot understand the need for hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting idly in inventory.

The value of tying inventory to the work order system is that it will show if the needed part was available, or if it was not, and allows for an evaluation to be made of the advantage of having the material in spares inventory versus hoping the spares are available at an equipment vendor's downtown.

In addition, the facility manager should recognize that some elements are critical to the operation of the facility.

For example, a large pump may be used in the system to pump water into or out of a reservoir. This type of pump may not be readily available, and the cost to the operation of being without water may be insignificant compared to the cost of a large pump in inventory.

It also helps if the facility manager has these types of numbers at his fingertips in order to justify inventory of special large end item repair parts.

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Staffing for Maintenance

Once all of the required Preventive Maintenance (PMI/PME) is known, it is a simple matter to calculate the required staffing level. The routine service items from the vendor's equipment manualsdaily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual inspectionswill total a number of manhours. When completed, the facility manager knows about how many hours are needed to keep the systems running smoothly and with little interruption. Given all of the equipment and all of the inspections, the facility manager can then make a trial estimate of the size of the staff needed.

The average worker is paid for 2,080 hours in a work year. With time off for vacation and illness, this number drops to 1,896 hours (two weeks of vacation - 80 hours, one week of illness = 40 hours, eight holidays = 64 hours).

The repair work called in from customers is a function of the age of the facility and the number of customers. For a new facility, the manager can start out with a staff to cover the PMI/PME. There is usually enough extra time to accomplish a few call-in orders.

As the facility ages, adjustments are made. In addition, the facility manager can outsource some of the work if it becomes too burdensome.

Once the facility manager has a work order system up and running, trends and analyses can be used to look at how successful he is with his maintenance force. Trends include the number of work orders in a month.

There will always be a backlog of work orders and the facility should have a mechanism for prioritizing them. However, work orders must be completed on schedule because the customers will lose confidence if they are not. Once confidence begins to be lost, the maintenance mission is in jeopardy.

The manager should also provide for some kind of check/audit of the work order system to verify there are not too many excess hours assigned. Audits of work order systems can be performed by skilled facility management firms on a contract basis.

Maintenance Tips and Short Cuts

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work and performing maintenance.

Hot Taps

One of the more difficult tasks in working with a water system is attaching a new line to an existing one. Normal practice would dictate the existing line be shut off and drained, the new line attached, and then the system refilled and sterilized. In many cases, it is not practical to shut off and drain an existing line.

In this case, a hot tap can be employed. A hot tap is a process whereby a new line is attached to an existing, operating line without draining the existing one.

Preparing a hot tap can be a delicate operation, because if it is not done properly, the existing operating line has to be shut down if the hot tap fails.

Since the decision to install a hot tap is somewhat predicated on the inconvenience of shutting the line down, the failure of the hot tap defeats the purpose of the hot tap in the first place.

To successfully hot tap an operating line, the location of the new tap and its size are determined. Pressures and flows for the new line are checked and verified to be compatible with the design of the tap. Next, the service line is prepared for the hot tap. Preparation depends upon the location and type of line. If it is buried, preparation is made by excavating and cleaning it. If it is a hot water line, the insulation is removed and the line cleaned.

The equipment for a hot tap is sometimes commercially available. For water lines, a hot tap is sometimes called a saddle tap. Figure 14-2 shows a saddle tap installing an instrument probe.

Basically, the hot tap wraps around the pipe with clamps or bands. The mechanism for tapping the pipe consists of a drill or punch that uses either threaded punch or has an opening for a drill bit. For the latter, the bit extends through a membrane around the drill bit to reduce the leakage once the tap is complete.

After the punch or hole is drilled in the pipe, the punch is extracted. Depending upon the design, a valve that has been incorporated with the hot tap is closed. The new pipe is constructed downstream from the valve.

The design of saddle taps and hot taps depends to some extent upon the design of the pipe to be punched. For larger pipes, say above about 6 inches in diameter, the design of the taps depends upon strengths and stresses generated by the tap and clamps.

Caution should be exercised when installing a hot tap because