A new simple index is presented that is useful in assessing a site or system as to relative risk for successful outcomes and how to use it as a valuable account management tool.

1. How to assess client or prospect sites and determine risks around water, operations, and equipment, and to understand why they are important and valuable to know.
2. By using this tool it will help water treaters how to be more critically aware of where risks lie, what questions to ask, and how to evaluate risks.
3. With a site or system properly evaluated, then a plan can be developed around chemical treatment requirements, improvement goals, and how to best communicate within your organization and with the client.

Presenter is Dave Christophersen, CWT, Senior Technical Consultant for AP Tech and an independent water treatment consultant.

• Dave Christophersen is experienced in wastewater treatment, boiler water treatment and pretreatment, cooling water, and membrane technologies.
• 43 years experience managing and designing water treatment programs for industrial sites for boilers, cooling systems, wastewater systems, and membranes.
• Chemical product development and product formulation of water treatment chemicals. Worked in many industries including oilseed, steel, manufacturing, power, chemical, mining, and others.
• Operated numerous field pilots for various chemical and equipment applications along with performing laboratory treatability studies.
• Conducts trainings on many topics of water treatment including water treatment chemistry, boiler and cooling systems and treatment, wastewater treatment and jar testing, membrane systems and cleaning procedures, and industrial services.
• Technical Director, VP, and part owner of Crown Solutions (1986 - 2006)
• Global Water Treatment Chemical Additives Technical Director for Veolia Water Solutions (2006 - 2020)
• Former board member for AWT

Some Papers and Presentations:

Whether we have recognized it or not, being able to categorize a site’s risk factors and knowing how to apply that knowledge can greatly help develop and implement a successful water treatment account or program.

Having a sense of how risky the site is can help in determining things such as:      

1. The required water treatment chemical treatment program.
2. The service frequency by a service provider.
3. Type of services required and qualifications of the service engineer.
4. How to communicate and coordinate efforts most effectively between the service provider and with the end user client.
5. How and where to set goals for improvements or risk reduction.

This assessment can be created for any water treatment system including:

• Boiler
• Cooling
• Clarification & Wastewater
• Membrane Systems
• Closed Loops
• Specific Processes

We can consider three major areas that will affect the results as being positive and successful, or prone to problems and poor results (W.O.E.):

1. Water Quality & Variability
2. Operations & Control
3. Equipment Used & System Design

For each system category we can create a list of factors that we can assess that will help quantify the risk as low, medium, or high. This can be quantified as much as possible, or used subjectively, as long as reasons for the ratings can be explained and strategies for improvement be created where possible.

With the categorization we can design a water treatment program and communication protocol to optimize results for the given situation and set goals for improvements if required.

An easy to understand index that I have named the W.O.E Relative Risk Factor Index (RFI for short) along with a matrix spreadsheet for creating an overall system or site score have been created to help identify and quantify the many contributing factors and to produce a final assessment for a given site as being low, medium, or high risk. 

The RFI has three digits. First digit identifies Water, Second digit is Operations; Third digit is Equipment

1 – Low Risk;   2 – Moderate Risk;   3 – High Risk

Example: RFI = 323

This indicates that the site or system has been assessed as follows:

Water (W.) – High risk water and/or high variability in water quality.

Operations (O.) - Moderate risk operations and control.

Equipment (E.) - High risk equipment being used or equipment system design.

The rest of the paper and presentation will show how to categorize successful outcomes, what questions to ask by system, then how to develop technical and communication strategies based upon the assessment and RFI that has been determined.

Dave Chistophersen has had a wide range of water treatment career exposures since he began working in the water treatment industry in 1977. Starting in sales and service with Olin Water Services and Betz ENTEC, then becoming part owner and VP of Crown Solutions where he had field management sales and service responsibilities, service technician manager role, capital sales manager role, equipment production manager role, technical manager position and chemical product design manager duties.

In 2006 Crown Solutions was acquired by the French international water treatment company, Veolia, where Dave had part time positions as technical director for the U.S. industrial water treatment division out of Dayton, and a director for the international chemical water treatment business for which he spent nearly 50% of his time travelling and helping to develop water treatment business internationally working with local Veolia business units, sales and service teams, the manager, and end users.

All of these years of experience has provided consistent exposure to field service water treaters, clients, back office support, R&D, vendor and supplier networking, and ways to improve products, operations, and equipment.