Abstract

NAJUL, María Virginia  and  BLANCO S, Henry A. Continuous improvement strategies in Venezuelan treatment plants. Rev. Fac. Ing. UCV [online]. 2014, vol.29, n.1, pp.37-50. ISSN 0798-4065.

The deterioration of water treatment plants adversely affects the quality of water produced and constitutes a risk to consumer health. In general, diagnoses report inappropriate designs, damaged equipments, low speed filter washing, empirical chemical dosing, lack of maintenance policy, poor staff training, among others causes. Based on the principles of Quality Management, this work proposes continuous improvement strategies within the framework of good practice, supported by the experience gathered in four water treatment plants, representing existing layouts in Venezuela. From the detailed analysis of the design, operation and control, the parameters were compared with those recommended in the literature. Common practices relating to functional/operational and organizational structural variables were identified, and procedures having a positive impact in its efficiency and effectiveness were proposed. The integration of the assessment methodologies used, are considered as a support tool for the systematic analysis of the treatment plants, which can be extended in other systems and is essential for the determination of critical control points in Hazard Analysis and Critical Control points (HACCP) methodologies and Water Safety Plans (WSP) requirement. This experience shows that the proposed changes, some simples, can be applied in the short and medium term, at low cost, especially those related to the functional / operational and organizational variables and are the solution to many of the major problems in the plants evaluated.

Keywords : Water treatment plants; Best practices; Assessment tools; Evaluation of water treatment plants; continuous improvement.

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