Building Trust and the “Frankenstein” Water Problem: Overcoming Challenges in Process Performance Guarantees

While Process Performance Guarantees (PPGs) can be critical for successful water treatment projects, their true effectiveness hinges on more than just contractual language; it deeply relies on trust and transparent communication among all parties involved. A PPG is fundamentally a partnership.

Tackling Unrealistic Source Water Data

One of the most significant and common challenges encountered in ensuring a successful PPG is establishing a realistic understanding of the source water quality. This can manifest in several ways: available data may be outdated, as water sources are constantly changing and migrating due to various influences and fluctuating concentrations. Alternatively, a well-intentioned engineer, incorporating a degree of conservatism, might cherry-pick the most conservative values on every parameter, effectively "Frankensteining” an unrealistic water source.

This artificial conservatism can lead to over-designing the system, incorporating unnecessary unit processes or redundancy, which in turn elevates costs and long-term maintenance burdens that weren't practically required. The inherent variability of water quality, not only from site to site but sometimes moment to moment, further compounds this complexity. To navigate this, the presentation of water quality data can be crucial. Instead of just strict parameters, providing average values, design basis values, and "not to exceed" numbers offers enough nuance for a supplier to design effectively, accounting for fringe cases that occur infrequently.

The Power of "Why": Transparency and Dialogue for Trust in Your PPG

Building trust is paramount in overcoming these challenges. Part of a supplier's responsibility is to transparently explain the "why" behind their comments or concerns regarding certain terms in a PPG. This open dialogue might even involve discussing fringe cases that happened once with a customer to bring potential issues into the open early. Such early conversations allow all parties to understand each other's perspectives and identify what truly matters.

From Data to Pilots: Proven Steps for Building PPG Confidence

WesTech builds confidence and trust through several key practices. Our deep process knowledge is a cornerstone, gained from understanding existing installations and actively engaging with legacy customers to collect data, which heavily influences risk assessments for performance guarantees. Beyond this historical data, for more undefined or complex industrial applications, WesTech may employ a staggered approach involving lab testing, pilot testing, or even full demonstration systems to prove out the process collaboratively with the engineer and owner. In municipal contexts, confidence is typically built on extensive application experience or pilot testing.

Trust Trumps the PPG

Ultimately, while a PPG includes contractual elements that define consequences or remedies for not meeting requirements, the ideal scenario is that there’s never an argument that requires the document to be referenced. Instead, if there’s some degree of trust and a history of collaboration in place, the goal becomes a collective approach to finding the solution. The success of a PPG, regardless of how meticulously it's written, is reliant on having a good working relationship between parties. It's about fostering open communication, active collaboration, and mutual credibility, often underpinned by demonstrated technical expertise and project-specific testing.