Sangjong Han

Evaluation of Customer-Driven Level of Service for Water Infrastructure Asset Management

AbstractThere has been an increasing need to examine the level of service from a customer’s perspective in order to set the appropriate service level with a limited maintenance budget. This paper presents an evaluation of a customer-driven level of service based on a survey questionnaire. A hierarchical questionnaire has been developed. The survey result was analyzed based on 800 answers from eight provinces in Korea. Weights between hierarchy levels have been identified through multiple regression analysis. Of the 13 factors considered as governing customer satisfaction with regard to water service safe to drink and service life of water pipes were in the highest priority improvement quadrant in the water service improvement priority analysis. It has been found that there are clear gaps between the views of customers and utility managers regarding water service, and this would be a good starting point in allocating maintenance budgets in a way that achieves maximized and balanced improvement in customer ...

Analysis of the characteristics of fat, oil, and grease (FOG) deposits in sewerage systems in the case of Korea

AbstractFat, oil, and grease (FOG) is the most common factor in sewer pipe blockage, and is the source of inundation and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs). In the US and the UK, many inundation or SSO events occur each year, and a great deal of cost has been incurred to improve these situations. However in Korea, the database for sewer maintenance is still insufficient. In this study, FOG deposits collected in Korea were analyzed, and the characteristics of the FOG deposits were compared with the characteristics of the FOG deposits from places with different food cultures investigated in some of the major previous studies. Six FOG samples were collected from sewer mains and service laterals in the sewerage systems. The characteristics of the six samples were examined using FT-IR, Ca ion, and fatty acid composition analyses. The results of the FT-IR analysis indicated that the spectra defined in the previous studies of FOG were observed, and thus similarity to the samples of the previous studies was found. T...

Comparison of two sewer condition assessment protocols in S. Korea

AbstractThe operation and management of social infrastructures can create significant headaches for municipal governments. Sewer systems are no exception, and prioritizing plans and strategies for asset management is usually adopted as a cost-effective solution. The condition assessment, which is an important element of asset management, provides current information about the condition of municipal facilities. Condition assessments were first used by Water Research Centre (WRc) in the UK, the country with the longest history of sewer management, and are now widely used in many countries. Korea uses the condition assessment protocol developed by the Ministry of Environment (MOE), but as this protocol does not fully reflect the underground environment in Korea, the assessments and judgments are ambiguous. The sewer condition assessment and rehabilitation decision-making (SCARD) program developed by this study is based on the MOE protocol with the defect items, score, and condition grading system modified in...