Advances in Water Treatment and Enviromental Management

70 WATER TREATMENTtechnical excellence’ is out of step with commercial reality. Covering rapidgravity filters, tiling of pumping stations, and concrete in preference tosteel must become cost effective as well as technical niceties.New technology in a fiercely commercial environment will introduce valueengineering on a new scaleWe are now in a fiercely commercial environment not because we have acompetitor, as the monopoly is still intact, but when a neighbouring WaterCompany Ltd is supplying its consumers with water at half the tariff of anAuthority plc, questions will be asked not only by the consumers but byshareholders.The introduction of a “fully automated works” or “total telemetry” will nowonly proceed if the ‘rate of return’ on the capital required can be justifiedover that for a manual or semi-manual operation. Can we, as Engineers,use our skills, not to provide that which is technically best but to provide asafe minimum of technical design that we can justify both in terms of safetyand cost.We have accepted plastic technology as a cheaper alternative to steel oriron but as engineers this still took some swallowing and has taken nearly20 years to be fully accepted.Ours is an old fashioned industry and change does not come easily especiallywhere our consumers’ health is at risk but today we need to lead with theimplementation of new technology.Capital needs to be conserved and its expenditure fully justified which shouldcatapult our conservative industry into leading with new technology wherecapital or running costs can be safely cut.Costs per capita will introduce financial engineering as the first criteriafor designs which are required to meet only the minimum environmentalstandards of the day.Exporting engineers and contractors have had to demonstrate talents forfinancial engineering to enable their clients to not only have the mostattractive offer but often to enable their Clients to proceed at all.Technology can enable financial engineering to give a third world client amore expensive plant at a cheaper price e.g.The same Treatment Plant: