Assessing the Most Important Drains in the Known Universe: Experience at Major Beer Brewing Facilities

There are a number of large, beer-brewing facilities throughout North America. As with all manufacturing facilities, there is a significant inventory of very critical assets that play a critical and supporting role in the entire process of making and shipping a variety of malted beverages that are enjoyed by many responsible adults. One of these critical assets is the complex network of drains that carry process and manufactured wastes from various process buildings to a treatment or pre-treatment facility at many of these brewing locations. Due to a number of unusual wastewater properties - including elevated BOD, very high and short-term temperatures, extreme variations in hydraulic loading, and gritty materials (such as broken glass) - drain systems require constant attention to their structural integrity and hydraulic reliability. In 2012, CH2M HILL was commissioned to conduct a comprehensive and baseline assessment of the entire drain system network at eight large brewing facilities in North America. The purpose of this comprehensive drain assessment program was to ultimately develop a prioritized list of capital improvement projects over a 5-year period based on risk and asset management principles for each of these facilities. The paper will describe the unique challenges of performing a successful condition assessment program for drain assets in facilities that operate non-stop, 365 days a year. Specifically, the paper will explore the early discussions and strategies necessary to evaluate a wide range of technologies and diagnostic tools to enter these drain lines and the final approach and work plan that can be endorsed to ensure a successful rehabilitation program outcome. During periods of active deployment and inspection, we will highlight solutions to problems that could be encountered such as the following: .. Management of heavy, sticky, and gritty brewery solids .. Avoidance strategies with situations such as unmanned, laser-guided robots .. Internal navigation through severely corroded drain lines .. Inspection and cleaning of chronically surcharged drains .. Redundancy planning to ensure zero-tolerance of potential backups and surcharging Once completed, inspection data can be post-processed using modified NASSCO/PACP codes better suited for manufacturing facilities with each individual drain asset being separately evaluated for two important categories: Structural and Maintenance. The final element of the program to be discussed is a sensible data migration of these final condition scores to a riskbased asset management model that can create a final and prioritized list of capital and O&M projects for implementation by larger brewing facilities in the years to come.