WWEMA Window: Service — More Than Just Parts And Spares

As an industry we continue to navigate the paradox that consumers of our product often take its value for granted.  Producing clean water is no small endeavor.  Whether it be the plant design, technology selection, treatment plant construction, or maintaining successful operation, each step is dependent on the others to achieve success. 

Selecting processes and technologies is challenging by any measure.  For communities, it is often a decision that will affect them for many years to come. Collaboration with the community, engineers, and contractors is fundamental to success. Solution providers, often referred to as manufacturers, are important collaboration partners and vital to the process.  Yes, we sell technologies.  However, we are experts in very focused areas.  So how do we differentiate between many potential partners?

In recognizing the long-term implications of such critical decisions, an important but often overlooked differentiator is commitment to service.  Service can be one of the biggest factors contributing to a project’s overall failure or success. Despite this, service capabilities can often be overlooked in the selection, design, and procurement of plant upgrades.  Imagine taking over operations of a newly upgraded facility with countless new advanced technologies provided by various manufacturers all with different interfaces. All of these different elements must work together cohesively as a single system with the unified purpose of delivering clean water. Consider performing this already overwhelming task with limited support.

Service means many things to many people.  To some it can simply be quick responses on parts orders or getting through to someone quickly when they call.  As technologies advance, we must take a more expansive view.  Service starts with supporting customers from the initial contact, educating them about the product and how it fits into the larger facility design. Service is helping to proactively improve functionality through the entire design process. Service is doing what it takes to ensure that equipment is installed as quickly and efficiently as possible and with little interruption to daily operations. Service is providing training to get plant staff familiar with the new technology to maintain optimal efficiency of the entire plant.

Service is courtesy visits and relationship building as they learn to operate and maintain the technologies.  Reflecting on the drive for continual improvement of asset management over the past several years, service must be a long-term commitment, a collaboration from the initial design process throughout the entire life of the technology.

Service As A Differentiator

The value of service can be challenging to define in an evaluation process, as it can be very difficult to quantify numerically.  Nevertheless, it might be the single most important factor in the overall success of an entire project. Not all partners are created equal.  All too often, contract decisions are simply reduced to price.  Unfortunately, this frequently makes the decision significantly more costly in the long run.  As an industry we must find creative ways to recognize and better allow for value-added differentiators with service being the preeminent value-adding differentiator. Recognizing service value and enabling its use as a differentiator in partner and technology selection is the surest means of raising the stakes for the industry. 

We Are All Service Providers

Whether it is delivering water to a tap, clean water to the environment, process design to clean the water, or providing the technologies required to accomplish meet the treatment objectives, we in this industry are all providing a service to our community and the environment. We are all a vital part of an interconnected community dedicated to ensuring the well-being of our neighbors. By virtue of this fact, we must also recognize that not all service is equal.  Those that strive to serve the best bring true value to their customer.

WWEMA Is A Service Provider

WWEMA is a member-driven organization, completely dependent on our members’ volunteer time. It is a community of service-oriented organizations. Our members include water and wastewater treatment equipment manufacturers in every area of treatment process. If you are looking for technology providers that understand the value of all the different forms of service, it is a great organization to contact.  We can support and offer advice on means of recognizing the value of service and other value added differentiators in technology selection. 

WWEMA and its members are strong advocates of value-based procurement.  Value-based procurement allows municipalities to account for factors beyond lowest initial price and select those companies that offer the greatest value in technology and service to their customers. Over the long run, this can help optimize operation of the new facility and support more collaborative relationships. It is fitting to end with a quote by Benjamin Franklin — “When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.” This seems to be particularly true for service as well.

Adam Neumayer is the Managing Director of Hydro International – Water and Wastewater Solutions, as well as a member of the Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association (WWEMA) Board of Directors. For more information about WWEMA, go to www.wwema.org. Interested in becoming a WWEMA member? Contact WWEMA Executive Director Vanessa Leiby at vanessa@wwema.org.