A boutique environmental consulting firm (let’s call them WAI; not their real name) based out of the San Francisco Bay area uses QNOPY platform for the operation and maintenance of their soil vapor extraction and monitoring (SVE) system. The field monitoring includes measurement of sub-slab vapor and indoor air concentrations and recording other operations parameters such as air flow rates, temperature and pressure differentials, and humidity.
Project set up
Prior to QNOPY WAI used paper forms to record the operational parameters for the SVE. The SVE system has many components which are split into multiple buildings and enclosures. Different parameters are recorded for different enclosures and monitoring points.
Following summarizes the SVE system setup:
1. There are 18 extraction wells/points
2. There are 4 buildings with 18 soil vapor monitoring points
3. There are 9 equipment enclosures where air needs to be monitored
4. Extraction system blower that extracts the vapors and pushes the vapors through two carbon vessels
The permit to operate requires the operating parameters to be within a certain design criteria. Each parameter has a different design criteria and it varies between different monitoring points and locations. The parameters also need to be within the historical ranges for a location – parameter combination.
Challenges:
- Unique design criteria for each location-parameter had to be printed on the forms
- Unique forms for each location – made it too many forms to carry to the site
- Field staff have to adjust the system settings to stay within the permit limits
- Site engineer has to update the paper forms after every site visit to adjust the historic ranges
- If the field staff accidentally switched forms for locations they didn’t find out for at least a week
- Field staff brings the forms back to the office at the end of the week, sometime every couple weeks
- Site engineer then manually enters the field data into Excel and then format it for the report which is time consuming and error prone
Solution Overview
QNOPY worked with WAI engineers and technical staff to understand the requirements and configured the platform to fit their requirements. Following summarizes the QNOPY solution configured for the SVE system:
- Created 10 unique field forms
- Assigned separate forms to monitoring points, extraction wells, and SVE system
- Set up calculated fields in the forms so that the field staff don’t need to manually calculate
- Created two types of validations
- hard design ranges: parameter values must be within the design criteria
- warning historic ranges: if the field staff enters a value that is outside of the historic range then it gives a notification
- Provided facility for the field staff to put a signature on the form
- Created a custom Excel EDD export which exactly matched the reporting requirement
- Trained the field staff and made sure all their concerns were addressed
Key Achievements and Benefits
- Eliminated the need to carry paper forms to the site
- No mix-up of design criteria – the app accurately shows right limits for the location
- On-site validation of parameter values eliminated re-work
- In-app calculations – no need to use a calculator
- Eliminated the redundant re-typing of data into excel
- Status bar shows the completion of the forms thus ensuring that not part of the form is missed
- Instant access to the data – project engineer sees the data as soon as its recorded
- eSignature captures signatures digitally thus ensuring accountability
- All monitoring locations are geo-referenced and could be viewed aerially
- Drawing tool capabilities to create site maps and sketched diagrams right in the form
By: Saurabh Gogate
Date: November 2, 2017