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There is a good chance that you will encounter an algal bloom this summer if you are around the water. That is not all bad because algae is naturally present in all water bodies and algae is an important part of the ecosystem. The part that makes algal blooms a tough subject is that the factors that cause both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ algae are overlapping and non-linear. Solutions require both short-term and longer-term approaches.


Blue-green algal blooms (cyanobacteria) are the bad kind. Commonly referred to in the business as HABs (or Harmful Algal Bloom), cyanobacteria is a photosynthesizing bacteria which releases toxins that can produce headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting and severe liver damage in humans and animals. Undesirable conditions in water chemistry, such as low dissolved oxygen and high pH, are usually present in conjunction with HABs.


The combination of high nutrient levels, light, high water temperatures, and stagnant conditions produce algal blooms. However, it is not quite that simple because these conditions are frequently present but harmful algal blooms do not exist. Stagnant water, high temperature, and excessive nutrients stimulate blue-green algae growth.


Regularly monitoring the water column for temperature levels, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, and turbidity provide the best indicators for forecasting a harmful algal bloom. Monitoring for chlorophyll-a, a surrogate for phosphorus and nitrogen, can be helpful; however, analysis of the actual species of nutrients and algae are much better predictors than proxying from a surrogate measure.


The solutions are not straightforward for preventing algal blooms in our surface water bodies – ponds, lakes, reservoirs, and water supply canals. Reducing the presence of stagnant water is an obvious choice, but there are different users, use patterns, and natural water availability depending on the seasonal period. Eliminating excess nutrients in the water body is also an obvious choice but in complicated by policy and property rights issues related to nonpoint source (stormwater) controls and atmospheric deposition (rainwater) from sources that are non-adjacent to the water body. In recreation applications, implementing good practices to minimize bottom disturbance, which avoids stirring the nutrient food source for algae into a suspended state, can be difficult to show to policy makers the direct correlation to harmful algal blooms.


The most effective things to do to minimize harmful algal blooms is to maintain a normal flow of water and to reduce the number of algae-feeding nutrients that make it into the water. Long-term success requires extensive changes in policies and human activities. The ‘what’ to do is fairly well understood. The “how” to do it is the confounding part.

Some solutions for algal blooms once you have them include aeration, chemical additives such as alum, and mixing. Aeration replenishes crucial dissolved oxygen but can be expensive or difficult at large scales. Chemical additives include alum (yes, the same stuff used to make pickles and used as part of drinking water treatment) which drags nutrients to the bottom of the water column. Another form of chemical additive is aquatic herbicides (algaecides) that are typically copper based; however, algaecides are quite expensive at large scales. Finally, using mechanical mixers to eliminate stratified layers is a third major solution. In practice, aeration, chemical additives, and mixing are often used in combination depending on the scale and scope of the problem.


Preventing algal blooms in water bodies is a year-round thing. Like remembering to fix the roof only when it starts raining, it is often when the weather heats up and we see the effects of algal blooms that we think about the problem. The key to viable solutions is combining short-term mitigation with long-term good practices, and of course with ample monitoring for feedback loops. Water bodies are complex, biological systems. Timing, and expertise, is everything.

 


Writer's pictureJD Solomon

 

“Get on the Bus!” is US Coast Guard Electricians Mate Second Class Paul Frantz’s artistic interpretation of a key take-away about prioritization. Without buy-in from the implementation team, prioritization in the planning phase will simply die when no one gets on the bus.

 

This month’s Ask the Experts is a one-on-one lightning round with Tim Adams. Tim has worked in several industry sectors, including oil & gas. aerospace, and local government. He is an ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE) and the technical editor of "KSC Reliability," a website for the practitioner in engineering assurance. In his day job, Tim serves as a senior quantitative analyst with a specialty in Reliability and Risk Engineering for the NASA Kennedy Space Center. His formal education is in mathematics, education, and management.

We were pleased to have John Rider moderate the conversation. John has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceuticals industry. His roles have included plant engineering manager, director of maintenance, control systems group manager, principal process engineer, validation engineer, and quality engineer. John received his BS in mechanical engineering for the Georgia institute of Technology and his MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Prioritization is applied every day to projects and activities related capital improvements, operations & maintenance, and business processes. Some cost-effective, highly valued, and standard tools are related to Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Prioritization, Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Improvements, Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) Improvements, Billing System improvements, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Mitigation Activities, Preventative Maintenance (PM) Program Optimization, Condition Assessment, and Risk-Based Facility Improvements.


 

Do most organizations have formal methods for prioritizing activities? Should they?

JD: All organizations have some forms of prioritization. Most prioritization happens on a very informal basis in most organizations.

TA: I was going to say ‘no’ but JD is probably right. Organizations make decisions and use some way to rank and prioritize even if their method is not fully understood. I have just not seen a lot of formal ones. But that may be because I have always been one to help create them.

JD: When you don’t get the buy-in, then people don’t see how the prioritization is happening. They have to guess where the priorities are coming from.

TA: Yes, definitely. Ideally you would have a formal system, a black box, and some artificial intelligence to help you. You should have something formal, but many organizations do not.

Why is having a formal method of prioritization important?

TA: Everyone wants to know how. You want people to respect it and not bring it down.

JD: It is one thing to come down with orders of what to do next. To have buy-in in implementation, the people must be involved.

TA: There is a lot of tools and techniques – if there is not understanding by the people on how you are making the prioritization decisions, then you are in trouble.

JD: Participation and buy-in is also a reason many organizations struggle with standardized prioritization approaches. It sounds easy in concept to establish frameworks from above, but they really need to be somewhat flexible to respond to participate needs.

Should you use the same method for prioritizing different areas such as capital improvements, maintenance activities, and business process improvements?

JD: Many of the fundamentals are the same. I think that is essential to keep in mind. For big capital projects, we tend to use multi-criteria, detailed methods because the decisions feel big. Oftentimes in maintenance and operations, we tend to be less formal.

TA: We tend to use many of the same fundamentals. The difference is that we often cut the data differently and are less formal. Sometimes with standardization, we tend to throw the reports over the fence. The only way to get buy-in is to involve people. You do not need to get too fancy and leave people behind. Very seldom is there a method that applies to everything.

JD: Yes, and sometimes we do not want a standard process. We sometimes like to do it different because we want to get what we want. It is not disorganization; it is stacking the deck to get what we want.

TA: People change the methods to fit their biases which includes looking at only the data that they think is important. Many times, the prioritization decisions are made based on the delta between what you have and what you want. And that is a legitimate metric.

What is your favorite method to use when do prioritization?

TA: I like to use a trend analysis with Laplace test scores. It creates a pseudo-measure of risk that has at least three dimensions for failures or reported problems.

JD: I have used a lot of complex methods over the years, but Ranking is my favorite. This is the best way to get with front-line staff, build a list, and rank them. In a quick amount of time, you can get 80% of what you should be doing.

TA: Are you saying just 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

JD: Yes. And I love the complex methods. The reality is that they do take time, and you do lose some people in the complex process. The simple methods often come out with similar answers, in less time, with more front-line buy-in. Whether you use complex or simple methods, you still need judgement and some adjustment on the back end.

TA: Start simple first. Often, I am asked “why don’t you use my method?” I usually ask back “how will it change your course of action?” Many times, the simple methods get you to a similar point as the complex methods. That said, I do like to use multiple methods and multiple degrees of complexity.

What is the most common mistake(s) that you see when organizations do prioritization?

JD: The leader does not get the boss’s boss to get buy-in. The team is happy, but we did not meet expectations.

TA: Too much focus on the perfect quantitative answer instead of the best qualitative answer. We do not necessarily need a perfect little q, the quantitative answer, just one that solves the big Q, the qualitative answer. We just need little q to shake hands with big Q. I do not try to find the perfect numbers, just to help make good decisions.

JD: That is a great one. And we both come from very quantitative places. That surprise me from two other experts from the pharma and aerospace industries.

TA: I claim that the people that come to the meeting don’t have all the quantitative stuff. They do not have the numbers, they didn’t analyze them if they did, or don’t know how to do it correctly. So, they end up sitting there with only what we call their decision styles. They really end up with weighting against their values.

Both of you do a lot with reliability and risk. How is the best way to prioritize the results of a root cause analysis or an after-event analysis?

TA: You can do the simple stuff by just ranking the things in a serial system that have the greatest impact on reliability. That is probably the way most organizations do it.

JD: I have a couple tools. Ultimately root cause comes down to cause and effect and that must be tied back to values. I think that is where we often end up, regardless of the more advanced or complicated methods we use.

TA: A complex analytical method such as probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) uses software like SAPHIRE (reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAPHIRE). PRA typically uses an event tree to describe how various components of the system respond to an undesired event. The failure state of the component is described by fault tree that is connected to a leg of the event tree (reference: https://kscddms.ksc.nasa.gov/Reliability/storyboard.html?diagram=13).

JD: Technical people tend to have technical answers. Business people tend to have business process answers. You have to merge the human and the equipment actions together to win the battle. Prioritize your activities holistically.

Sometimes a team will develop a prioritized list, and superiors farther up the line will change it. Is this to be expected? What can be done to minimize this occurrence?

JD: Organizations do not run as democracies. At nearly all levels, most of us function in teams and collectively as technical advisors to decision makers.

TA: Keeping aligned with the ultimate decision maker is extremely important. I have often got half-way through an analysis and have been told that what has been done to that point is sufficient. That is okay because meeting the decision maker’s needs is what matters.

JD: Specifically, from a prioritization standpoint, maybe we do not want to minimize changing the prioritized list. Judgement is needed before a prioritized list is converted to action. I had rather have that intentionally on the back end that trying to manipulate the prioritization method to yield the desired results.

TA: That goes back to what I said earlier about finding the best qualitative prioritization and not focusing just on the perfect quantitative one.

Both of you have worked in many different fields. What has surprised you most when it comes to prioritization?

TA: I have been invited to beer parties and no one drinks beer.

JD: In other words, you were going prepared for one thing and it turned out to be another.

TA: Yes, I have been to more than one meeting where the guy leading the meeting said he didn’t like math or statistics. But that is what the meeting is all about. He says he does not care about the numbers since the topic of interest is an “emotional one” and not a “factual one.”

JD: With prioritization, everyone wants to be perceived as objective and, in many cases, it comes down to personal preference.

What is the best single tip that you would give someone who is preparing to lead any form of prioritization activity?

JD: Make sure you get the people most close to the action involved. They may not understand all the math or the science, but most of the time they get it right.

TA: I agree.

JD: I would also add to focus on the insights and understanding that is developed from the group. We often forget that and try too hard to defend a method or a number.

TA: No matter what methods you are using, make sure you are aligned with the plain English – the critical parameters that are needed to make the decision.

 

Rider’s Righteousness

1. The best projects are where the project owners are actively engaged and want to find implementable solutions.

2. If they do not know where the bus is going, they are not going to get on.

3. Capital improvements, maintenance activities, and business process improvements have different timing needs. Timing is a reason prioritization cannot be standardized or too formalized across all applications.

4. You can present data all day long, but it really takes that emotional, heart-felt connection to get people to change their minds.


An updated master plan for your organization’s most needed infrastructure projects is the best way to position for funding in the aftermath of COVID-19. The availability of COVID-19 money from Phase 3 and the potential of Phase 4 infrastructure stimulus funding are primary drivers. New grant and low-interest loans, such as state revolving fund (SRF) programs for water and sewer projects, may become opportunistically available as some communities struggle with future uncertainties and forfeit existing awards.


An updated master plan should rely heavily on existing master plans in combination with community staff coming together to re-prioritize the most pressing facility and infrastructure needs. For many communities, the updated master plan can be completed in a couple well-facilitated sessions with key engineering, operations, maintenance, and finance staff.



Data is always important, but the generation of new data should not be a priority in the case of a COVID-19 updated master plan. One reason is that it is simply not realistic to predict modified post-COVID-19 customer behaviors with a high degree of certainty. A second reason is that probabilistic tools, such as Monte Carlo Analysis using Palisade’s @Risk, applied to existing 10- or 20-year forecasts is sufficient for a quick evaluation of variability.


Criteria used to update the capital improvement program (CIP) prioritization can also be simplified. Short-term priorities that center on grant/low-interest loan support, immediate community needs, and significantly engineered and permitted projects (“construction-ready”) should dominate updated master plan needs. That is not to say that traditional criteria such as net present value, sustainability, and economic expansion are not important; however, opportunities to be included in tight community budgets and/or for opportunistic grants will be driven by more ‘sure things’ over the next couple of years.


Any master plan must consider the economic realities of the community and its residents. It is even more important in the aftermath of COVID-19. The time for an updated master plan is now. There is no need to overthink it. Simply keep it simple – use existing data and master plans, engage a knowledge facilitator, and make sure the right internal staff are participating. Opportunity comes to those who are prepared.

 

JD Solomon Inc provides program development, asset management, and facilitation at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the environment.

Experts
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