Well now; you said: water ...
Published by Waymon Hofheins
Well now; you said: water supply serving 25,000 people with no operations procedures. That means you have no management procedures, and no point of reference if a valued operator dies, or is off sick. If that happend, how do you run your plant with nothing written down. You need maintence logs and procedures, as well as operating logs and standard operating procedures (SOPs). Everyone knows, this is a lot of work; but it has to be done. Start with what you know, and all of your workers know: write it down in a manual that is documented, dated, and signed by multiple personal with the approval of management. There is nothing wrong with a manually operated system - until there is a problem. Then you have nothing to support what your procedures should be, and nothing to support with what you should have done, and did you do it properly. With potable water, you must have some type of testing. Are your tests documented for SOPs. By that, I mean: are your own procedures written down and not just pointing to a manual by someone else. Even a small test, such as a Hach test for hardness, must be written out. How do you titrate? How do you calculate the results? All of this must be written down. Discussions may refer to other manuals. But, your own SOPs will document how the operators perform their work, and do they do it. What do you do if an operators fails to do what was requested, and signs the log that says he did. Wow, the answer: you can bring dicipline, lack of pay or termination. "Oh, he wouldn't do that." Yes, they do, and have. But documentation helps to prevent it. Once upon a time, a long time ago: one of our inspectors had an operator tell him that that a certain required procedure was not needed and that he usually omitted it. That statement was written up on the inspection report: the operator signed it without reading the report. When the report was read by management, the statement was made that they had been looking for a way to terminate that operator for five years: he was fired the same day.
Log books of what is done must be used, with dates, time and signatures.
The internet was suggested below. Ok, use that for research and a guide point to what you want, but do not for a moment think that you can accept the net as the final word because if you use a blog like this one you run the risk of getting false information.
Lack of the proper procedures and proper maintenance - with documentation = is the primary difference between private and government installations.