Veolia Environmental Services is introducing its Hubgrade digital platform, which combines human expertise and digital technology for operational and environmental efficiency. Hubgrade acts as both a facilitator and a tool for forecasting and decision making support as part of Veolia’s continuous quality improvement process. Chris Braybrooke, the company’s general manager for Marketing in South Africa, explains.
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Our new Hubgrade platform is able to monitor the biology taking place in the digesters of municipal wastewater, optimising these processes so that water of discharge quality can be consistently produced. It can also monitor non-revenue water, leakages and track the quality of any water stream, be it for human consumption or industrial process use, begins Chris Braybrooke of Veolia Services Southern Africa.
For industrial process water, Hubgrade can alert plant managers to serious issues such as compliance and license to operate. In the mining sector, for example, spillages can cause the suspension of operations, significant losses of revenue as well as reputational loss, he says.
In the food and beverage industry, where waste streams are beneficiated for biogas generation as a source of fuel for heating or electricity production, the Hubgrade platform assists in optimising processes to deliver savings for clients, he continues. The platform also makes it possible for multi-site benchmarking in real-time, such as treatment plants required to deliver similar levels of water quality for potable use, discharge into rivers or for industrial processes, for example.
The platform is built around five key client requirements across market sectors: compliance; uptime; efficiency; sustainability and convenience:
From a compliance perspective, traceability of the water quality at all times is a key principle. Service and maintenance history is also critical, along with alarm management and early warning systems, which are incorporated to help ensure quality compliance. Ultimately, this minimises risks and maintains a facility’s license to operate, with the added assurance of remote and continuous monitoring.
Uptime is about maintaining continuous production, which requires high plant equipment availability. Membrane monitoring, for example, is critical for a desalination plant. The idea is for the Hubgrade platform to proactively/predictively identify maintenance issues well before problems arise so that maintenance personnel can react quickly to targeted alarms sent via SMS or email. Remote troubleshooting and advice by our in-house Veolia teams are also offered to enable technicians to arrive on-site well prepared.
Efficiency advantages come from the ability to continuously optimise plant parameter settings based on monitored key performance indicators (KPIs). It is also possible to benchmark operational efficiency across plants, so as to increase robustness and productivity. Other efficiency benefits arise from being able to safely delay Capex expenditure; savings on inspection and walkaround time for operators; multiple site management; automated reporting; easy access to support; and many more.
Sustainability management comes from being able to quickly access data about water, energy and chemical consumption and to use this data to minimise waste and optimise production efficiencies. The platform enables Veolia specialists to extract reports on these issue, track long-term progress, perform benchmarking and identify lessons learned.
Multiple convenience advantages also accrue: From a technical perspective, equipment parts lists, O&M validation documents, operation performance reports and commercial orders, for example, can all be centrally stored and accesses from anywhere. Order handling and service budgeting becomes transparent and globally visible across multiple sites. For maintenance personnel, Veolia’s Hubgrade is also being uses as a repository for self-training videos on installation and maintenance procedures.
Necessities highlighted by COVID
All water and wastewater sectors are required to be fully operational at all times, with properly functioning maintenance services, whether this entails industry-specific employees being onsite or specialist contractors such as Veolia on standby. During the COVID-19 pandemic, certain risks became apparent: the non-availability of plant operators due to illness; or the lack of maintenance and support staff due to hard lockdowns being enforced. Such personnel shortages can quickly result in plant safety issues, the need to shut down or even plant failure.
A digital platform such as Hubgrade can mitigate many of these risks. Embedded predictive maintenance features such as targeted alerts along with logs of previous maintenance can help staff to make informed decisions on minimum needs. On the operational side, alarms can be divided into critical and non-critical ones to enable managers to take action quickly, appropriately and remotely.
Hubgrade can also help to deliver the specifically required technical support from in-house specialists who might be incapacitated due to a pandemic. Communication with the clients and decisions affecting plant operations can be made remotely and as quickly as they can under normal conditions.
COVID has also led to the need for much more multitasking to cover for incapacitated staff. The skills and experience levels of plant operators and maintenance personnel, although extremely high, cannot cover the entire plant. Digital and remote assistance tools, however, such as those embedded in Hubgrade, can fill the gap, mitigating most of the risks.
Our Hubgrade platform consists of different service modules designed to suit different requirements. These range from basic data collection to a 24-hour support service from Veolia engineers. These options are embraced using the modules:
CONNECT: which creates a continuous link between Veolia and clients, providing quick access to information and expertise.
SUPPORT: which offers customised service support and advise to meet each customer’s operational and strategic needs.
IMPROVE: which strives to continuously improve the operational and environmental performance of a client’s equipment and infrastructure.
For the success of any Hubgrade implementation, therefore, it imperative that clients discuss their exact requirements pertaining to the monitoring and operation of their plants so we can deploy the correct package for the application, says Braybrooke.
Customised profile based training
Once installed, any new plant fitted with Hubgrade and operational outputs, the platform is set up with the required elements as specified by the client. Different training is then given to personnel who have access to the platform, depending on the profile of the person in the organisation.
Braybrooke explains: Sometimes business managers want to see only performance data and critical alarms, whilst operational managers need to see reports on all aspects of a system’s performance. So we tailor-make the training depending on what the profiles of the people are and their requirements for feedback from the platform. In total, eleven training courses are stored on the Hubgrade platform.
Overcoming SA’s infrastructure challenges
South Africa’s municipal waste and potable water production plants are mostly run down and dilapidated. Upgrades to such facilities are urgently required, as are capacity expansions. In addition, industrial water plants are all dependent on proper maintenance and upgrades as technology advances. Our older plants require retro-fitment of equipment or new facilities need to be designed and constructed. Technology has improved, though, and most new Veolia plants have a footprint up to 75% smaller than older conventional plants. This includes membrane technology plants such as ultrafiltration for wastewater plants – our ACTIFLO clarification technologies can operate at rise rates of 100m/h compared to conventional plants that operate at only 3.0 m/h.
The Veolia Group has built up best practice data over a period of more than 160 years. It is fair to say, we have a wealth of experience in terms of operating and maintaining any type of water treatment plant. This empowers us to partner with a client in both the municipal and industrial sectors to ensure plant availability and performance excellence.
By using the best-practice methodologies of operation and optimising plant production, we remove the headache associated with budgeting, plant breakdowns and compliance failures for clients.
With the addition of Hubgrade, Veolia clients are able to concentrate on their core business and rely on Veolia’s team of globally experienced professionals to operate and maintain their plants, ensuring that all of the performance KPIs, quality outcomes and compliance needs are continuously being met, notes Braybrooke.
For Veolia, although we have access to more than 350 different technologies, we are strongly committed to sustainable environmental practices and concrete action to assist our clients and shareholders to achieve their sustainable development commitments.
When designing a plant, sustainability must be the first consideration: process optimisation, energy reduction, waste valorisation, lowering the cost of production and affordability. The resulting plant will then be able to meet all of our physical, financial and environmental needs, long into the future.
We at Veolia know that digital is key. That’s why it is essential to capitalise on Hubgrade, which offers unique solutions across all our business segments, ensuring improved visibility of operations and offering opportunities to improve the performance from this single digital platform, Braybrook concludes.
