MechChem Africa November-December 2021

Hubgrade: sustainable management of our natural resources

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 SouthAfrica, explains.

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. • Sustainabi l ity 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 produc- tion 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 han- dling and service budgeting becomes transparent and globally visible across multiple sites. For maintenance per- sonnel, Veolia’s Hubgrade is also being uses as a repository for self-training videos on installation andmaintenance procedures. Necessities highlighted by COVID All water and wastewater sectors are re- quired to be fully operational at all times, with properly functioning maintenance services, whether this entails industry- specific employees being onsite or special- ist 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 previ- ous 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, appropri- ately and remotely. Hubgrade can also help to deliver the specifically required technical support from

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.

O ur new Hubgrade platform is able to monitor the biology tak- ing place in the digesters of mu- nicipal 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; sustainabil- ity and convenience:

• From a compliance perspective, trace- ability of the water quality at all times is a key principle. Service and mainte- nance history is also critical, along with alarm management and early warn- ing 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 con- tinuous production, which requires high plant equipment avai labi l ity. Membrane monitoring, for example, is critical for a desalination plant. The idea is for the Hubgrade platform to proactively/predictively identify main- tenance issues well before problems arise so that maintenance personnel can react quickly to targeted alarms sent via SMS or email. Remote trouble- shooting and advice by our in-house Veolia teams are also offered to en- able technicians to arrive on-site well prepared. • Eff iciency 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 produc- tivity. Other efficiency benefits arise

6 ¦ MechChem Africa • November-December 2021