Comprehensive Operation and Maintenance Program

Challenge

In an effort to reduce groundwater treatment system costs, Mundell decided to turn over the operation and maintenance (O&M) of one of its remediation systems to a sub-contractor located much closer to the system than Mundell. This change in O&M providers would save the costly mobilization expense incurred by Mundell for every site visit. The creation of a comprehensive O&M program that could be utilized by another company or sub-contractor for the efficient and competent operation of the remediation system was necessary to insure proper operation and maintenance of the groundwater treatment system.

Action

Mundell realized that any program developed would have to be comprehensive and yet easy to implement. Mundell developed step by step written guidelines for all routine maintenance procedures. In addition a site visit procedure was developed to ensure that all relevant data was collected and all due maintenance was performed. This procedure was then put into a checklist style site visit form that would be completed on every site visit. Since the system was also subject to NPDES permitting, Mundell developed a sampling procedure as well. Mundell arranged for the lab to ship a sample kit, containing everything necessary to collect and return the monthly samples to the lab, to the sub-contractor each month. Mundell then trained the sub-contractor personnel in all of these procedures. The final step was to develop a spreadsheet that all the data is entered into which facilitates the tracking of production trends and allows for the prediction of upcoming maintenance based on historic data.

Results

Mundell was able to create an O&M program that allowed virtually anyone with minimal O&M experience to track the history of, and perform preventative maintenance on, a complex remediation system. Furthermore these procedures allow Mundell to retain responsible oversight of the system O&M with minimal time invested.