Quality Assurance & Commissioning

These services are built into our pricing for the delivery of a plant and are not optional. They are required to ensure that we maintain the quality and efficacy of our designed solutions. Where we work with an engineering partner, we may, after they have demonstrated their competence, handover the QA role to the partner. Commissioning requires a significant level of biological expertise and acts as our safety-check for every plant design to ensure that we always exceed the performance needs of every customer.

Quality Assurance

While the majority of the plant is a relatively straightforward civil, plumbing & electrical installation process that can be carried out by any experienced contractor, we take the efficacy of our designs seriously and therefore insist that we provide Quality Assurance services during the installation phase of the plant. In our experience this typically saves significantly on any remediation works and provides the contractor with expert, on-site advice regarding issues that may arise during construction. Our involvement with installation is typically limited in nature, especially during the initial civil and building construction phases, increasing once the plant components are installed and reach the point of commissioning.

Commissioning

During the commissioning process, we will monitor and control the development of the biological colony required for the treatment process. We also use this period to monitor influent and effluent quality and to “tune” the operation of the blowers, pumps & valves to ensure we are achieving the desired treatment levels while keeping the HRT (Hydraulic Retention Time) down. We also use this period, if required, to train operational staff from the customer (if they wish to maintain the plant themselves) and to ensure that everything is operating according to design with no leaks, issues with sensors, data capture & transmission, etc.

Duration

While each plant is different and there are a number of logistical and situational factors that will affect the duration of each installation and commissioning, we can state that the normal commissioning period would typically be between 6 to 8 weeks. Installation is so variable, based on the size, accessibility and complexity of the plant, that we cannot offer an estimate, but if you contact us for a design, then we will be able to offer a good estimate based on the data you supply.