Process modeling approach to privatization of wastewater treatment

The management of the privatization of wastewater treatment services is a complex process. The wastewater plant is subject to a variety of financial, technical, and legal constraints that must be met to ensure public safety and well being. Currently documented methodologies for use in privatization ventures are imprecise and qualitative; they are based on successful case studies that may be difficult to repeat under different circumstances. The preponderance of the literature is focused on the financial aspects of the privatization process as opposed to the engineering challenges. The extension of systems engineering methodologies to the functional decomposition of a wastewater treatment facility is the contribution of this work. Identification of the wastewater functions that satisfy business and technical constraints is vital to the privatization process. An IDEFO model of a municipal wastewater treatment plant was developed to identify the functional elements of the treatment process and their interrelationships. The components of the IDEFO model are developed and the use of this model as a tool in the privatization process is defined.