A collaborative design appraisal system for water treatment engineering projects

Water treatment projects usually involve large capital investment. Design appraisal is crucial to ensure project quality and cost effectiveness. The aim of design appraisal is to give the design team an opportunity to evaluate a proposed solution at the design stage when the benefits for change are high and cost is low. Design appraisal is a collaborative decision-making process that requires good communication and knowledge sharing between all the team members. Unfortunately, at present in practice there are many communication bottlenecks that result in decisions being made without proper evaluation and appraisal. The paper describes the development of a collaborative design appraisal system, which facilitates a remotely located design team to work in collaboration, carry out what-if analysis and optimise the design of water treatment projects.