Reexamining the master plan - System Integration: Water/Wastewater

System Integration: Water/Wastewater

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Reexamining the master plan
May 11, 2007

Master planning is the focus of this and the next blog entry. This plan deals with how the control of three treatment plants will be integrated with the control system we are in the process of implementing for the pumping stations, which are located remote from the treatment plants throughout the parish (that's county to those not from Louisiana). We understand the City's prime consultant has just been issued a contract to be able to begin this planning.

The particular question I pose is this: What was missing from the previous plans? Of course, this will be my opinion and there will be several.

My unique perspective is due to my 20+ years of controls experience with the City. During this time, QDS Systems, a predecessor company, and another company we later acquired, successfully low bid the majority of the control and instrumentation systems at the City's treatment plants and their major pumping stations. One engineer suggested that for us to win that many we were probably bidding too low.—I suppose he is right.

The project that is the subject of this blog is the only one that hasn't been low bid, being performed under a professional services contract. Having done them both ways, we prefer the professional services contract. Low bid contracts at best force responsible bidders to provide only the bare minimum to meet the requirements. Provide more and you'll price yourself out of the job. Professional services contracts put the focus on getting the best system, allowing us the flexibility to propose alternates that build upon the original request, avoid mistakes of the past, and add things our experience tells us should be considered. They allow us to use our past experience with the City's systems to tailor an integrated end-to-end system solution, rather that the traditional low-bid municipal SCADA systems, which have tended to not be well integrated into operations. It's a matter of bigger picture thinking.

Since there has been huge turnover in 20 years within the City's administration and the prime consultant ranks, I am probably the only engineering-level controls person around that has had the opportunity to work with all the past prime and sub consultants, engineering, maintenance and operations personnel, seeing what has worked and what has not over the years. The most frustrating part of being the one with this perspective is to see history repeat itself—particularly the repeating of what didn't work a decade earlier—due to a lack of a corporate "memory" within the system. I've notice this tends to happen in many large organizations.

So, what was missing from the previous plans? See my list and reasoning for each in two weeks.

Posted by Peter Welander on May 11, 2007 | Comments (0)