Online Lab results Accelerate Remediation Processes - Simon Turner

In this article, Simon Turner, Commercial Director (Environmental, UK&I) at ALcontrol Laboratories, explains how recent internet-based advances in the management of analytical work have radically increased the speed and efficiency with which results are supplied to remediation contractors.

Summary
Fast analytical data is critical to the efficiency of remediation processes. However, analysis times are rarely the limiting factor; too often there are delays between sampling and analysis or between analysis and the delivery of results, or worse still; samples are non-conforming and cannot be accepted. ALcontrol has therefore developed an online tool known as ’@mis’ to resolve these issues and the following article will explain how the new tool is helping remediation contractors at one of the UK’s largest and most heavily contaminated sites to exploit the benefits of fast analytical data.

In addition to the online delivery of test data, the remediation contractor, VSD Avenue, is also utilising @mis to schedule analytical work so that the availability of results does not delay any of the remediation work.

The £172.3m clean-up operation at the Avenue Coking Works near Chesterfield in Derbyshire has been underway for over a year and project director, Marcus Foweather says: "Over the lifespan of this project ALcontrol will have tested in excess of 10,000 samples for between 5 and 18 species. This data is critical to the ongoing management of the remediation activities, enabling us to identify soils for treatment and to check that cleaning operations comply with the required specifications. Almost all process management decisions are therefore affected by test data, so the ability to access results through ALcontrol’s online @mis system has been a fundamentally important part of the project’s success."