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CASE
STUDIES:
Field Service or Salesmen
Salesmen are a noble breed and provide valuable product information.
Sometimes though, they are caught between making a sale and providing service.
INC Technical provides service first. If we can fix it we will, if you need
something new we will give you your options.
Take a look at the case studies below, does any of it
sound familiar to you?
Calibrate a
meter or who'll stop the rain!
A small county package wastewater treatment plant in
Ohio
had been built for a new subdivision. We were called in because the flow meter
was totalizing flow in excess of the design. The operator thought the meter
was installed improperly. We were asked to calibrate the meter and review the
operation. The meter was calibrated and placed back into service. We
temporarily installed a rain gage data logger and flow recorder.
The flows were within normal levels until rainfall. The
plant saw excessive flows during rain. We sealed manholes and reset the
disturbed storm water retention basins. We
reduced flows but we still had wash out. When we smoke tested, residents
thought the $ 250,000 plus homes were all on fire. It seems they tied in all
of the roof down spouts to the sanitary. Problem solved. The meter was
calibrated, storm water was diverted and plant operated as designed. The other
salesmen wanted to sell a better quality meter not look at the real problem or
correct it.
Test, retest
and test again: We can not maintain our chlorine residuals!
A .25 MGD plant operated 24 hours a day seven days per
week. The operator had to split time between water and wastewater. He was
fighting chlorine residuals in his water system. Some days high and some days
low. We temporarily installed a flow meter with a recorder (all the plant had
was a totalizer) and discovered his high service pumps were vastly different
in output. We determined they needed to rebuild the pump not buy a new
chlorination system as the other salesmen suggested. We integrated a pulse to
analog output and converted his metering pump to flow pace. Now he has time to
mow grass, read meters and keep up on his CEU's instead of testing chlorine 10
times a day!
Our sampler
does not work!
A 10 MGD wastewater plant had flow paced samplers
installed. The problem was the sampler and flow meter would quit working
during high flows. We evaluated the system control loop and found that the
signal was not isolated nor was the flow meter capable of driving the circuit.
We installed a power loop isolator and corrected the problem. The other
salesmen wanted to provide a new meter, recorder and sampler to guarantee the
problem was solved!
Food, floats
and a threat!
A large sewage lift station was located close to a group
of fast food restaurants across from a neighborhood park. Periodically the
lift station would overflow when the pumps failed to come on. Area parents
were outraged, the City Manager was getting irate telephone calls and the
operator…well you know how it all flows downhill. We found the floats loaded
with grease. We installed a non contact pump controller to operate the lift
station (no more stuck floats), provided direction on grease enzymes for the
station and grease traps and the blame stopped flowing downhill with the
sewage. The salesman wanted to size new pumps and controls!
Lease line
fees, expensive parts or a new truck!
A 1 MGD plant had old lease line telemetry to control the
water plant. They were paying over $ 400 per month for the lines and had to
order special parts from a proprietary vendor each time a lightning storm took
out the telemetry. Can you say gotcha? We were able to convert the system to
dial up lines using off the shelf modems from any local computer store. We
saved $ 260 each month on the phone bill, the operator now gets real time data
updates on his pager, and the transmitter / receivers that were $1000 each in
the old system and are now replaced by a modem that costs less than $ 100. We
also installed surge protection eliminating most of the equipment failure
problems. The salesman was happy to keep on selling repair parts! The operator
saved enough to get a new truck with air conditioning.
Everything was
fine until the new pump drives were installed!
A customer was left high and dry when a contractor went
out of business. The variable speed drive pumps were great in this 3000 GPM
pump station but the flow meter had not worked since they installed the
drives. We checked the control circuit and found it was installed in the same
conduit as the pump drive primary wiring. We installed new control conduit,
pulled shielded cable, calibrated the meter and left a happy operator. The
salesman wanted $5300.00 for a new meter and recorder.
An amusing
amusement park!
The maintenance manager called and said his flow meter
needed to be calibrated. We came and calibrated the meter and found improper
programming. The next month he called back and said, "What did you do? My
bills have been cut in half.” We found that the flume was set for a Palmer
Bowlus with a 1 3/4 offset throat. The salesman provided the start up service
and did not understand that zero was 1 3/4" off. The meter was showing
200 GPM with no flow going through it. Oh by the way, the salesman did not
charge for installing the meter, but the park was not amused to get billed for
$1261 a day for wastewater flow that was not there.
They were happy to pay our calibration bill!
My filters are
out of control!
An operator of a 1 MGD surface water treatment plant said
his filters were out of control. He could not determine his backwash flow rate
because each time he started to backwash the meter would go crazy.
We inspected his system and found the differential
pressure transmitters were improperly set allowing air to enter the
transmitter each time he lowered his filter. We reset the transmitters,
calibrated the system and now the operator is properly backwashing and saving
water and filter media. The salesman wanted to sell $12,000 worth of magnetic
flow meters!
SCADA on a
small budget
A .5 MGD water plant and .3 MGD wastewater plant needed
an auto dialer. The salesman had a great SCADA product but it was $17,000 plus
3 days of off site training. The
operator bought an auto dialer from us and with our phone help installed it
himself. Later he needed to have more data but had limited funds. We provided
an integrated control system, with real time data logging, software to plot
trends, a computer and printer for $ 5,800. Now the plant calls him to say if
there is a problem and he can call in to the plant and get a complete
operational status. The operator was amazed that we did not mind him helping
to save installation costs. He helped and learned his new system as it was
being installed and saved $10,000 in the process!
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