WATER UK

Tales for the future

Complacency is everyone’s enemy in business; in water services, it is disastrous. Animal fables show Barrie Clarke of Water UK why resourcefulness is so important in business

better quality. Suddenly, however, there was evidence of an unfortunate consequence of automated picking – traces of mouse tail reaching the line.

R

No panic, but instant action – line stopped,

batch removed, incident reported, engineer called. In short order, the cause had been identified, an additional process installed, and the company could resume shipping at normal volumes. Everyone with an interest in successful

process or manufacturing companies has a favourite story that shows the value of resourcefulness. This is not to underplay the value of ‘right-first-time’ or the benefits of systems design. But a capacity to deal with the unexpected, in a situation where tolerances are close to zero and there are many pressing demands, is indeed an advantage.

Resourceful

This train of thought began when I was thinking about the subject so beloved of business conference organisers: “The challenges facing the industry in the next ….price review or decade or century (take your pick)”. The water industry fits the bill on tolerances and demands as above; and I got to wondering how far you could put its success in the past ….year or AMP period or two decades (take your pick) down to having resourceful people and a can-do company culture. One of the problems of business conference

programmes is the need to make the mix of problems and solutions relevant to a wide enough audience. The result can easily dilute the complexity of what operators actually experience. For example, our industry arguably faces a set

of external challenges but also internal problems – above and below the line, if you will. Often it is the combination that makes life “interesting”, though this is seldom appreciated.

Complexity

The external challenges come from being dependent on the environment (and responsible for it); from providing services direct to the customer; from the need to keep investors investing; and from living with political sensitivity. It is widely agreed that they include the

22 Water & Wastewater Treatment May 2010

following: responding to climate change; meeting tighter environmental obligations; countering water scarcity in some regions; changing demographics and demand patterns; higher quality and service expectations; and a constant focus on cost efficiency and affordability. In one sense, we wish these problems would

go away. But in another, they are why we get up in the morning. Solving them is the reason the service exists. Internal threats and problems in the sector are not as obvious as the external ones. For one thing, they’re harder to define. They’re to do with governance, regulation and reputation with stakeholders – not the existence of these things (they’re inevitable), but the style – how they work in practice – whether they hold the sector back or spur it on – whether they give it the confidence to innovate, or spread doubt about its capacity to meet the external problems.

Always-on

To look at things like this is immediately to see that resourceful, determined, and ‘always-on’ are the characteristics that work best. Complacency is everyone’s enemy in business; in water services, it is disastrous. Consider the challenge to comply with tighter

environmental standards and the regulation surrounding it. There is often a mismatch between the expectations of interest groups and

the reality of what can be achieved and how quickly. It may be unattractive to business on the surface, but the story of the tortoise winning its race with the hare who relaxed, makes the point. The long road to compliance with urban

wastewater treatment and bathing water standards speaks to the value of ‘finding-a-way’ and ‘sticking-at-it’. Examples abound of the un-wisdom of trying

to rush things. Think about last month’s decision by the Planning Inspectorate to find for six water companies in their appeal against the rushed imposition of combined sewer overflow (CSO) regulation; the blanket consents would have been a recipe for confusion. Or look at the time taken by the industry to play its part in taking the number of English rivers reaching good quality from 55% (1990) to 76% (2008); but let’s not forget that by far the biggest cause of failing rivers now is not wastewater treatment but diffuse pollution from urban and agricultural sources. The animal story of choice for business these days involves the hedgehog who knows one big thing and the fox who knows many small things. Its popularity should not detract from its message, however. Success takes what they teach you at business school, but a good measure of resourcefulness never goes amiss. ■■■

bclarke@water.org.uk

aw product intake in the pea processing factory had been redesigned. The results were encouraging – higher throughput, Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64