Global Business Environment
for desalination and water treatment projects

White papers

GBE software philosophy: tuned for success

According to new research, success in 68% of technology projects is improbable right from the start; poor business analysis, understated requirements, and low level of competency being named among the major causes. So why is GBE different? [->Full text]

Desalination megaprojects: to participate or not?

Rapidly expanding water desalination market towards bigger capacities (of above 25,000 m3/day) encourages small-to-mid-size-unit manufacturers to participate in the megaprojects without prior experience in their engineering and construction and understanding what megaproject is. Wikipedia definition of the megaproject as an extremely large-scale investment does not throw the light on what to do to expand the small company business. [->Full text]

Project scheduling: out of stall

Desalination BOO and EPC mega-project schedules contain huge amount of interrelated activities. For instance, typical schedule of the 250,000m3/day project has more than 5000 entries with the annual maintenance budget of US$200,000. Available on the market general-purpose tools for the project scheduling and tracking like Microsoft Project Office and PSnext are not applicable at all to the projects in question. The article contains overview of the next-generation super-fast project manager which merges together deep customization, a powerful set of analytical tools and intuitive user interface. [->Full text]

Introduction into PFD and P&ID

GBE is inseparably tied to a number of diagrams: the plant general layout (GL), process flow diagram (PFD) and process and instrument drawing (P&ID), sometimes called piping and instrumentation drawing. This collection of diagrams is collectively called P&ID throughout the project. [->Full text]

Control resolved

HSE research, published in their book 'Out of Control', shows that 60% of all process industry accidents can be traced back to errors in the design and specification. Too many companies fail to specify what the control system is supposed to do. [->Full text]

Plant availability

There is a widespread confusion between the plant availability and the plant reliability. The latter relates to the procured equipment failure rate and is the negotiation point of the project package whereas the first is not as it depends on the repair capabilities of the plant personnel and the adopted preventive maintenance plan (PMP). It necessarily includes such time-consuming procedures as CIP cleaning and the membranes reshuffling and replacement. [->Full text]

Plant operation modes

Plant production capacity and operation modes are 2 inseparable halves. The clients and the designers shall be in full agreement about them as they may define a family car or a racer differing in price by more than 100%! For example, the seawater intake filtering system withstanding the jellyfish inrush lasting just several days a year is 3 times more expensive than the ordinary traveling band screens. [->Full text]

Pump selection: trifles make perfection

Times are gone when the pump selection was boiled down to the definition of the head, flow rate and material of construction. Nowadays high-capacity high-head pumps for desalination applications are a sophisticated piece of equipment always custom-tailored to the client requests. These pumps are a critical path component of the project schedule and the major contributor to the overall energy consumption of the plant. Below is an overview of key points that may help you in deciding which pump is right for you, and may enhance the performance and reliability of your pump at no cost. [->Full text]

Project specification

The ambiguous project specification is the perfect reason for the losing bidder to apply to court and have the deal halted and the bid evaluation results re-considered. Surprisingly high percentage of court applications (nearing 50% of all tenders, the author estimate) warrants closer insight into the project specification objectives and structure. [->to be continued soon ]

From archive

Cavitation-free non-overload start/stop procedures

The paper shows an elegant solution of the second-in-importance problem of any reverse osmosis desalination plant - start/stop sequences for high pressure pump coupled to the Pelton turbine. This procedure is implemented in the Palmahim SWRO plant (Israel, 2007). At present 5 out of 6 SWRO trains are stopped daily for 4 hours(!) to maximize revenues from low night tariffs. [->Full text]

Hydraulic design of side-ported RO vessel arrangements

Engineering recommendations on how to optimally perform hydraulic design of the reverse osmosis vessel arrangements in the desalination plants.(joint research with BEL, 2003). [->Full text]

Sea water multi-effect distillation energized by combustion turbine

Presented are feasibility study results of the Combined Power and Desalination Plant incorporating the Low-temperature multi-effect distiller. (Desalination, Volume 127, Issue 3, 20 February 2000, Pages 261-269) [->Full text]