Client

Gwinnett County

Location

Buford, GA

Services

Wastewater Engineering

To reduce a growing backlog of maintenance, improve equipment availability, and increase operations reliability at the award-winning F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center (WRC), Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources (GCDWR) implemented an adaptive and innovative on-call delivery model that allows delivery teams—comprised of engineers, contractors, manufacturers and subject matter experts—to quickly respond to emergency and urgent maintenance/repair challenges at the WRC.

As part of the on-call program, Gresham Smith staff work as a cohesive team with on-call contractors, County personnel and other consultants to assess, plan, design, construct and commission improvements at the plant’s facilities. This unique approach builds on County staff capacity and capabilities, allowing GCDWR to implement repair and maintenance services in the shortest possible time frame.

60
MGD water resources center
20
mile effluent line to the Chattahoochee River
1
innovative on-call delivery model
Team members seated around a table with their laptops open at F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center

Working Hand in Hand

Gresham Smith’s on-call team works collaboratively with County operations and maintenance personnel to identify work order goals, investigate equipment and process issues, and define the scope of work to initiate a work order for GCDWR’s assignment to an on-call construction contractor.

We continue to provide project management and engineering services during the work order execution phase by monitoring a project’s scope, schedule, cost and quality. Additionally, we collaborate with WRC staff to minimize and oftentimes eliminate impacts to plant operations. We also work with GCDWR leadership to obtain the timely approvals needed to maintain the project schedule and resolve any issues that arise during construction.

Workers installing process piping for efficiency upgrades at F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center

Early Implementation & Execution

The nature of these emergency and urgent projects typically requires immediate action leading to the early execution of the work—in some cases, before all the details of the issues are fully realized. In these cases, Gresham Smith works as a collaborative partner with GCDWR stakeholders and other on-call consultants through a progressive scope development process involving additional investigations and assessments to further refine the scope of work as more details become available.

This process results in early implementation and execution to address emergency and urgent needs at F. Wayne Hill WRC, while continuing to focus on any root-cause problems through future capital improvement projects.