January 23, 2018

Warrnambool Aeration System Replacement Project

Early in 2016, Victoria’s second largest regional urban water corporation Wannon Water, made a call for contractors to tender for the replacement of the aeration system at Warrnambool Water Reclamation Plant. Part of the works was to include all necessary pipework, valves and fittings for the new diffusers, manifolds and laterals including isolation valves, control valves, pressure reducing valves, instrumentation, down-comers, fixed submerged aeration equipment and all pipe supports. After Wannon Water awarded the tender, the Anchorage Group received a call from the contractor. Barry required over 3000 custom stainless steel pipe clamps, or 6000 pipe clamp halves. These had an outside diameter of 96mm. The construction was to be from thin gauge 316 stainless steel with custom hole spacing. They would need to be manufactured to specific shop drawings and the lead-time was critical. The Anchorage estimating team provided a quotation based on rough drawings and a photo of the required part. We included machine tooling to profile the edge of the clamp and increase the strength. The slightly raised rounded ends and edges increased rigidity. This tooling would also mean we could manufacture the custom saddles more cost effectively and in a faster time frame. Our production was almost at capacity; however we were able to reshuffle the jobs and provide Barry with a 4 week lead-time, pending the purchase order and payment process. Product Development worked in addition with our in-house Tool Maker. Finally after 3 trials, came up with the most efficient and effective tooling. We were able to deliver a part quantity of the saddles in overnight airbags, followed by another part quantity dispatched the following day. Consequently, this allowed the project to go ahead as planned and we shipped the balance on completion 3 days later.