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Understanding Lead Times and Project Timelines for Water Treatment Systems

Home 9 Blog 9 Understanding Lead Times and Project Timelines for Water Treatment Systems

When it comes to capital projects, the pace can seem downright glacial, with timelines that can easily extend over multiple years. But when you start to break down each step of the process, the significant time investment begins to make more sense. In this article, we’ll look at how high-purity water treatment systems move from concept to installation, and delve into how much time each phase of the project might realistically take.

How long does it take to design and build an industrial water treatment system?

The amount of time needed to design, build and install a custom high-purity water treatment system will vary significantly depending upon factors such as the scale, complexity, and location of the project. For example, a high flow, multi-stage high-purity water treatment plant can take upwards of 2-7 years or more from inception to completion, while a small-scale standard water treatment system for an existing facility may be completed in as little as 1 year (but that is rare).

Many water treatment equipment vendors also offer pre-engineered or standard systems as an alternative to customer engineered or site-built plants. pre-engineered water treatment systems are manufactured off-site and delivered to the owner as a self-contained, ready-to-install unit. They can be a great solution for cutting down the overall project time and minimizing onsite construction time. For all their benefits, packaged water treatment systems have their limitations, and are generally not the best choice for treating very large volumes of water-.

Breaking down the project timeline for a water treatment system

Understanding the key steps in a project is important for gauging the overall timeline. Here, we’ll look at the common phases involved in delivering a water treatment system, the objective of each phase, and how time is typically allocated throughout the project.

Planning

When building a new water treatment system, the first phase of the project is dedicated to careful analysis of a client’s water treatment needs, and planning of the overall project. The goal of these steps is to establish objectives and specifications that will form the foundation for the rest of the project. To ensure that later phases flow smoothly, it is essential to allocate enough time for planning and analysis activities. For most water treatment systems, plan on spending about 30% of the project timeline on planning, which for large-scale systems can mean many months of planning before any construction gets underway.

While it may seem like a significant time investment, the planning phase of the project is a busy one, as the project team will need to consider many factors, such as:

· Water quality. What is the influent water quality relative to the target water quality? This will very often demand collection and lab analysis of water samples to assess factors like composition, color, turbidity, and pH. The project team should also be careful to consider seasonal variability in water quality, which can mean waiting months to collect representative samples at different times of the year.

· Capacity. How much treated water will the owner need to support their process(es)? While this question seems straightforward enough, the project team will need to consider current and future flow rate needs to allow for anticipated growth that may happen during the lifetime of water treatment system.

· Location. Will the new water treatment system be located at an existing facility, or will the owner need to secure a new site? Determining the location may require surveying, and careful consideration of access to utilities, roads, access to source water, and how waste streams will be handled.

· Budget. How much is the owner able or willing to spend on the project? Determining the available budget for both up-front and long-term operating costs will help the project team to efficiently assess the feasibility of various water treatment technologies and system designs and avoid wasting time considering solutions that are not economically viable.

· Compliance and permitting. What environment regulations or permitting requirements apply to the project? Water treatment is subject to stringent regulations at multiple levels of government, so the project team will need to research the proper processes for obtaining permits or other authorizations from local, state, federal agencies before construction can begin.

Planning should involve as many stakeholders as possible to ensure that all potential challenges are considered and addressed. This may mean various representatives of the owner’s organization, as well as a range of subject matter experts (SMEs), such as engineers, construction firms, regulatory agencies, water treatment companies, and others. Capturing as many perspectives as possible will ensure that the planning and analysis phase is time well spent.

Engineering & Design

Achieving a high level of water quality can be a complex undertaking from both a mechanical and chemical standpoint. During the engineering and design phase, the project team will work through the technical aspects of the solution, and focus on developing detailed plans to guide construction. The list of deliverables at this phase can include building plans, blueprints, technical diagrams, and functional descriptions. Producing all this material is a meticulous process that demands a high level of precision and accuracy, so expect to spend at least 25% of the project timeline in the engineering and design phase.

During the design process, a collaborative team of engineers, architects and designers will develop the overall design of the water treatment system. To do so, the team must consider a variety of factors to develop a solution that not only aligns with the objectives and specifications identified during planning, but that also complies with any regulatory requirements.

The design may comprise several different water treatment technologies, each of which is selected by weighing their respective pros and cons in terms of capital costs, operational costs, energy efficiency, operational complexity, or other factors. Some designs will encompass one or more treatment stages (e.g. preliminary, primary, secondary, tertiary) to achieve the owner’s target water quality specifications. Engineers must also ensure that all components are compatible with one another to ensure optimal performance and minimal maintenance. This also extends to i like valves, pipes, and pumps, all of which need to support the appropriate flow volumes and pressure, and must be able to withstand any extreme process temperatures, and resist corrosion if certain constituents are present. Finally, the system design should incorporate devices to simplify operation and maintenance. This typically includes integrating automated control systems into the delivery network and/or treatment equipment, as well as sensors to monitor process conditions like flow, pressure, quality, and temperature.

Aside from the water treatment equipment itself, the solution design will also need to provide plans for any supporting infrastructure. Minimally, engineers and architects will need to ensure that any buildings or foundations can withstand the weight of the water treatment equipment when full ofwater. Many project plans will also consider other factors, like optimizing spatial use for maintenance or scalability, if such factors are priorities for the owner.

Construction

The construction phase is where the project starts to come to life—and where all that time spent on planning begins to pay off. Construction activities will typically include site preparation as well as fabrication and installation of water treatment equipment. For a well-planned project, expect the construction phase to run about 25% of the total timeline, keeping in mind that errors and oversights in earlier phases can quickly lead to delays and cost overruns once crews break ground.

Building new facilities on undeveloped land will add at least several months and up to a couple of years to the project timeline, since crews will need to clear and excavate the site, and build any needed supporting infrastructure like roads, utility connections, and pipelines.After this, the project can proceed to construction of buildings and other structures, and installation of water treatment equipment, tanks, and water distribution network components, like pipes, pumps, and valves. Often, water treatment equipment is fabricated offsite and shipped to the project location. This model saves time by allowing equipment fabrication to proceed concurrently with construction activities occurring at the actual project site. In addition to the benefits associated with speeding the project timeline, factory built equipment is often more economical than equipment that is assembled on site.

Because construction may involve participation from several vendors or contractors, it is important to maintain good communication and plan strategically to ensure that crews have what they need, when they need it. Suppliers require lead time at various stages of order fulfillment, including time for processing, storage, and transportation, as well as inspection once the product finally arrives at the project site. Therefore, it is important to source materials and water treatment equipment from trusted vendors who manage lead time reliably and can accurately estimate delivery timelines.

Commissioning & Startup

Following construction, the project will move into an installation,commissioning and startup phase where the installed water treatment equipment will undergo testing and adjustment, and operations are finally handed over to the owner. Most water treatment system projects can expect to spend about 20% of the project timeline on commissioning and startup activities.

For most projects, commissioning and testing activities will typically overlap somewhat with the construction phase. For example, water treatment equipment fabricators usually perform factory acceptance testing (FAT) prior to shipping to verify that components meet design and functional specifications before they reach the project site. Prior to and during installation, crews will also perform site acceptance testing (SAT) to verify functionality, check for leaks, and otherwise ensure the equipment is free of defects. It’s also worth noting that biological wastewater treatment systems may require up to several weeks of additional time during the commissioning phase to establish biomass before the system is fully operational. This can sometimes be sped up by “seeding” the new system with sludge from an existing facility.

After installation, additional rounds of testing will be done to assess system performance. Data collected during testing is used to fine-tune the system by calibrating sensors, and adjusting dosing, aeration, mixing and flow management systems. Finally, once water treatment systems are brought online, they will undergo proof of performance testing (PoPT), which entails collecting samples at a defined interval (e.g. daily, weekly) and analyzing them to ensure that the system is achieving target water quality specifications. Most water treatment system installation projects will allow several weeks for final quality testing to ensure that any operational variability is detected and resolved.

As commissioning and testing draws to a close, water treatment professionals or other SMEs will initiate knowledge transfer activities, such as conducting training programs, and preparing manuals that detail operations and maintenance protocols. These startup and training activities will generally account for a relatively small share of the overall project timeline, at around 5%, although some projects will include ongoing vendor support for a longer period of time.

How can SAMCO help?

SAMCO has over 40 years of experience in the design and delivery of high-purity water treatment systems and process separation solutions. Our team has extensive experience with a variety of project delivery models, ensuring that we provide valuable insight and quality service whether we’re working directly with a client or in collaboration with a EPC firm. Our service offerings include:

SAMCO draws on its extensive catalog of services to deliver custom water treatment or wastewater treatment systems for a range of industrial, municipal, or commercial applications that vary in scope and scale. To learn more about our innovative solutions, check out our project archive for examples of past projects.

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