In recent years, the regulatory pressure on sewage treatment plants has been increasing year by year. Many sewage treatment plants, under external pressure, spare no effort to ensure water quality. In communication with some sewage treatment plants, a common saying is that any problem that can be solved with money is not a problem. Under the pressure of the situation, sewage treatment plants are willing to spare no cost to ensure standard operation. Is this result really ideal?

As a public welfare urban service industry, the sewage industry requires a large amount of capital investment to maintain its operation, and its centralized treatment concept also brings about a high-energy consumption operation mode. The high cost of operating sewage treatment plants under this model is evident. But as an industry, even a sunrise industry in the context of environmental governance, what is the survival value of this industry if it remains in a high cost, low profit, or even no profit, negative profit situation for a long time? Does it rely solely on unlimited government funding injections to sustain operations? If long-term blood transfusion is needed to sustain survival, how can the sewage treatment industry survive and grow? As a profit driven social capital, how is it willing to invest in it? Is there really no way to crack the current situation where the operation and management of sewage treatment plants continuously invest funds to maintain operation and meet stable standards?

Every industry has its own industry characteristics, and the input-output ratio determines the profitability of the industry. In every industry, there are those who survive and those who are eliminated. But where is the root of the trend of survival of the fittest? Control the key control points of the industry, clarify the clear structure of the industry, and industrialize the operation of the industry in order to survive and develop in market competition. So the sewage treatment industry also has these characteristics. Conducting in-depth research on the sewage treatment industry and identifying its ideas can help to reverse the current situation of the sewage industry.

As the sewage industry involves a large number of aspects, such as investment and construction, which are limited by the professional direction, we will not discuss here. The official account will use several issues to talk about the cost control of the sewage plant from the perspective of the operation and management of the sewage plant. We hope to discuss with the operation and management of each sewage plant how to control costs in the operation and management, and welcome everyone to participate in the discussion of the operation cost of the sewage plant.

Before discussing the operating costs of sewage treatment plants, let's first understand what costs are. Cost is the value category of commodity economy and a component of commodity value. People must consume a certain amount of resources in order to engage in production and business activities or achieve certain goals. The monetary manifestation and objectification of the resources expended are called costs, which are the resource costs that have been paid or paid for the process value-added and effective results. And with the continuous development of the commodity economy, the connotation and extension of the concept of cost are constantly changing and developing. Enterprises need to consume production materials and labor for product production, which are measured in monetary terms as material costs, depreciation costs, wage costs, etc. The business activities of enterprises not only include production, but also sales activities, so the expenses incurred in sales activities should also be included in costs. At the same time, in order to manage the expenses incurred in production, they should also be included in the cost. At the same time, the expenses incurred in managing production and business activities also have the nature of forming costs.

This is a rather dry economic definition. From the perspective of operating our sewage treatment plant, the concept of cost is explained as the various production necessities, including manpower, materials, and management, invested in the process of treating the sewage received by the plant to meet national treatment standards for discharge. These are all converted into monetary form, which is the cost of our sewage treatment plant. The cost management of sewage treatment is the management of various links in the entire process of sewage treatment in the sewage treatment plant.

Every sewage treatment plant manager hopes to achieve low-cost operation and ensure good water quality and quantity of treated effluent with low investment. But in actual operation, it is often done at any cost, ignoring cost management, and can only exchange high costs for stable operation. So in the management of sewage treatment plants, do we really have to pay high costs to ensure stable water quality? From the perspective of operational management, can we find a more reasonable operational management model to effectively control the cost of sewage treatment plants, thereby reducing operating costs and ultimately achieving profitability?

Wastewater treatment is a relatively special production-oriented enterprise that pays more attention to process management. Measures for result management are often unable to reverse the problems that have occurred, and can only control the problems that have occurred after the results have occurred. At this time, various consequences caused by excessive effluent have already occurred and have adverse effects, especially with the continuous flow of water. The excessive effluent that has occurred often affects for a period of time, and the measures taken during this period are of no help to this part of the wastewater. Therefore, effective control over the process is a unique aspect of wastewater treatment management compared to other industries. After understanding this issue, when we first establish the concept of operating cost management for sewage treatment plants, we must first determine that the management of operating costs for sewage treatment plants comes from the cost generated in the process management, not the cost of final marked water.

Wastewater treatment plants need to effectively control costs, and operators need to have an accurate understanding and analysis of the plant's costs. When operation and management personnel establish a correct understanding of costs, they will have a clear concept of cost management in wastewater treatment plants, and can also manage costs in wastewater treatment plant management. That is to say, operators can ultimately achieve cost control of sewage treatment plants by managing the sewage treatment process.

However, each sewage treatment plant has its own unique sewage treatment process, which will result in different cost expenditures. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct careful analysis and research on cost management within the plant. So, from what perspectives should we analyze and control the cost of sewage treatment plants? This is what we will discuss in the next section of the official account, the cost composition of the sewage plant. Welcome everyone to continue following and participating in the discussion.

Let's talk about the cost structure of sewage treatment plants below.

The cost of sewage treatment is considered by operators as a boundary condition or limiting factor for production control. However, for local government water supply, the cost of sewage treatment will be amortized into the public's tap water fee. Therefore, various government departments have corresponding guidance documents on the cost of sewage treatment, such as the "Shanghai Sewage Treatment Cost Regulation Management Measures (Trial)" (Shanghai Water Affairs No. 660) issued by Shanghai in 2016; The Price Bureau of Hebei Province issued the "Hebei Province Urban Sewage Treatment Pricing Cost Supervision and Review Measures" (Ji Jia Cheng Gui [2017] No. 159) in 2017; A series of domestic documents, such as the "Shaanxi Province Sewage Treatment Pricing Cost Supervision and Review Measures" (draft for comments) launched in 2018, have provided administrative regulations on the cost of sewage treatment based on the financial situation of local governments, regional development, etc. The regulations provide a comprehensive description of the cost structure of sewage treatment plants. Through administrative regulations of the government, it is necessary to effectively control the operating costs of sewage treatment plants. Otherwise, if the operating costs of sewage treatment plants are too high, it will lead to excessive water prices being passed on to the people, which will put certain pressure on government management.

As the operation and management personnel of a sewage treatment plant, the primary task of cost management is to carefully analyze the cost composition of the sewage treatment plant. Due to different design processes, treatment water quality and quantity, facility and equipment quality, and regional differences, the cost of sewage treatment plants varies. It is impossible for sewage treatment plants in different regions to have uniform operating costs. Therefore, operation and management personnel need to refer to the cost analysis methods and ideas of sewage treatment plants, analyze and summarize their own cost statistics. So how do we evaluate the cost of our respective water plants?

As a production-oriented enterprise, the structure of a sewage treatment plant is relatively clear, and there are no multiple channels for operation. Generally speaking, the division of costs is relatively clear, mainly focusing on the costs consumed in the sewage treatment process and auxiliary costs. Based on the policies and regulations of multiple regions, we can discuss the cost of sewage treatment plants from the following aspects: 1. Energy consumption cost. 2. Pharmaceutical cost. 3. Labor costs. 4. The cost of sludge treatment and disposal. 5. Equipment repair and maintenance costs. 6. Manage costs. 7. Other costs.

Below, we will discuss these costs item by item:

1. Energy consumption cost.

Due to the requirements of urban planning and development, urban sewage treatment plants generally adopt a centralized treatment mode for construction. The biggest problem with centralized sewage treatment plants is high energy consumption, which requires a large amount of energy to maintain the normal operation of the plant from pipeline laying, sewage lifting, equipment operation, and so on. Therefore, in a sewage treatment plant, the important cost consumption comes from the cost of energy consumption. As electricity is now the main source of energy in the city, the cost of energy consumption is ultimately reflected through electricity bills.

For the cost of electricity consumption, it is necessary to accurately calculate the operating equipment in the factory and estimate the output power of the equipment. The operating equipment in the factory relies on electric motors to drive, and different devices are equipped with electric motors of different powers. These different powers are used as the basic data for calculating power consumption, but they are not the final power consumption data. The actual power consumption needs to be carefully calculated based on the actual energy consumption of the electric motors. For example, many sewage treatment plants usually consider unfavorable factors in their design and set some safety amplification factors in the selection of parameters. As a result, the calculated values are relatively large. In the equipment selection stage, in order to ensure safety, larger power equipment will also be selected. As a result, there will be many situations where large horses pull small cars in the sewage treatment plant. At the same time, there is also a period of time when the water volume gradually increases after the construction is completed, and for some sewage treatment plants, the planning and actual development do not correspond, leading to the inability to operate at full capacity. This results in most of the motors in the sewage treatment plant not being able to operate at full power or at full load, causing a lot of useless power loss, which becomes the useless power expenditure of the sewage treatment plant, that is, the excessive consumption of costs. In actual calculations, detailed calculations should be made for this situation in order to accurately grasp the actual electricity cost consumption. Official account will discuss the estimation and control of energy consumption cost in detail in the subsequent cost article.

Another thing to pay attention to is the power compensation for the high and low voltage distribution in the sewage plant. As a large user of electricity consumption, the sewage plant is usually supplied with a high voltage of 10 kV by the power supply bureau. The high voltage is reduced by transformers in the sewage plant and then supplied to the low voltage devices in the plant for use. In the low voltage consumption of the sewage plant, the reactive power loss caused by the resistance of the equipment due to the characteristics of the AC power causes useless consumption of electricity. Therefore, power compensation is necessary. The power supply company will charge different fees for different power compensations adopted in the plant, which is also a major point in controlling energy consumption costs in the sewage plant.

From the perspective of the cost composition of sewage treatment plants, the cost of general electricity consumption accounts for a large proportion. Energy consumption costs involve all the equipment and places that consume electricity in the sewage treatment plant. Careful analysis of the generation of electricity consumption in the plant, and statistical analysis of every detail, is the foundation of cost management. Only by analyzing all aspects of electricity consumption can the cost of electricity consumption be accurately determined.

2. Pharmaceutical cost.

In the process of sewage treatment, in addition to a large number of microorganisms degrading organic matter, there are also some

Undegradable pollutants, even the sludge produced by microorganisms in large quantities every day, cannot be completely degraded by microorganisms in the relatively small area of sewage treatment plants compared to nature. These pollutants need to be eliminated through the addition of water treatment agents. Here, there are mainly coagulants used to remove suspended solids from water, coagulants used for sludge settling and concentration, disinfectants used for killing harmful microorganisms in water, and chemical agents used for membrane cleaning. However, overall, these chemicals belong to the supplement of biological treatment or the treatment of residual concentrates from biological treatment, and their proportion in sewage treatment plants is still relatively small.

However, in recent years, with the strict implementation of Class A standards for effluent indicators in sewage treatment plants, many sewage treatment plants, especially in northern regions, have unreasonable nutrient ratios in their influent water quality. The high total nitrogen and total phosphorus in the influent cannot rely on the carbon sources contained in the sewage itself to achieve degradation, and require the supplementation of carbon sources and chemical agents such as aluminum or iron salts for phosphorus removal. Moreover, as this part of the chemicals is used to compensate for the deficiencies in the inflow, the cost of these chemicals increases with the uneven increase of water quantity or quality, and they increasingly account for a significant portion of the cost of sewage treatment plants.

With the strict implementation of the standards for water quality treatment, the cost of medicament has become an important part of the cost of sewage treatment plants. In some sewage treatment plants, the cost of medicament has been equal to or higher than the cost of energy consumption. The cost management of this part of medicament involves the adjustment and management of biological processes, which is the difficulty of cost control of sewage treatment plants. official account will discuss the control of these medicament costs in detail in the subsequent cost articles.

3. Labor costs.

The operation of sewage treatment plants requires personnel to maintain and manage equipment, manage and adjust processes. These personnel need to receive corresponding labor compensation for their work in the sewage treatment plant. This part of labor compensation is labor cost. Labor cost is relatively simple in the operation of the entire sewage treatment plant, but it involves local wage standards, labor contracts, social insurance, occupational health care or allowances, overtime pay, reward mechanisms, various welfare benefits, etc. These labor costs are related to the work enthusiasm of every sewage treatment plant employee. If the determination of labor cost is unreasonable, it will affect the management of the sewage treatment plant. Low wages result in employees lacking a sense of belonging, rapid personnel turnover, and loss of experienced staff, leading to increased management costs; However, excessively high wages can make the cost structure of the sewage treatment plant unreasonable, resulting in high costs and inability to achieve profitable operations, ultimately leading to ineffective management of the sewage treatment plant.

As a social welfare industry, sewage treatment plants not only bear the social responsibility of urban sewage treatment, but also ensure the interests of enterprises. It is important to ensure that the personnel engaged in sewage treatment receive corresponding living guarantees, and to determine reasonable labor costs. This is a serious and balanced task that every sewage plant manager must undertake. Only reasonable, guaranteed, and incentive based wages and salaries can make the management of sewage plants increasingly perfect and improve. The determination of labor costs also involves many social factors, involving multiple aspects of society. Therefore, the determination of labor costs will not be discussed in depth, and each region can determine it according to its own actual situation.

4. The cost of sludge treatment and disposal.

As the final transfer substance of pollutants in sewage treatment plants, residual sludge contains a large amount of pollutants

Pollutant substances, environmental protection departments have also made many related management requirements for the disposal of sludge. Reducing the amount of sludge in sewage plants is an important means of sludge treatment, in which chemical agents such as polyacrylamide are used as flocculants to aggregate solid impurities in the sludge, making it easier for dewatering machinery to dewater the sludge. And the price of this chemical agent is expensive, which is an important cost component of sludge treatment in sewage plants.

In addition to the purchase cost of chemical flocculants, there are also many peripheral costs associated with sludge dewatering. The sludge system is a relatively independent system in a sewage treatment plant, which has a complete production chain. Throughout the entire chain, there are peripheral cost outputs, such as individual power costs, water supply costs, maintenance costs, and so on. This requires detailed statistics on the operation mode of the sludge workshop. The costs generated by different dewatering equipment are different, and some equipment focuses on power costs, such as centrifuges, stackers, etc; Some devices focus on the cost of flushing water, such as belt filter presses. A detailed analysis of costs is necessary to obtain more detailed project statistics on cost expenditures.

In some regions, the requirement for sludge moisture content is higher, reaching 60% moisture content. After sludge dewatering, there is also a process of sludge drying, which also requires greater cost investment. Different drying processes result in different cost expenditures. Some require chemical improvement, some require high-energy heating, and some require biological addition, etc. These are the costs generated by sludge drying. This part of the cost is extremely difficult to remove the residual moisture of wet sludge, so the cost is also very high. In actual operation, the standard moisture content should be used as a control indicator to reasonably control this part of the cost.

What needs to be mentioned later is the transportation cost. Sewage treatment plants are not the final destination for sludge treatment or disposal. They need to be transported to waste disposal sites designated by environmental protection or housing departments for further disposal. This process requires transportation. Due to the large amount of moisture in sludge, it is easy to cause pollution along the way during transportation. Therefore, special transportation vehicles or at special times are needed for transportation, which will result in abnormal cost expenditures during the transportation process. This is related to the actual external environment of the local area. It is necessary to conduct reasonable market comparisons of these costs, determine reasonable transportation costs, and control sludge disposal costs.

Sludge treatment and disposal are an inseparable part of sewage treatment plants, and the costs generated in this part are also a part of the cost composition of sewage treatment plants. Moreover, the production of sludge workshops is an important part of ensuring stable and compliant sewage treatment. It is necessary to pay attention to accurate estimation and statistics of the costs of sludge workshops. We cannot ignore the high costs here, as ignoring these costs will lead to abnormal operation of the sewage treatment process, resulting in higher treatment costs. This cost relationship will be discussed in depth in the later management of the hard cost and soft cost of the sewage plant. You are welcome to continue to pay attention to the relevant content of the official account.

5. Equipment repair and maintenance costs.

A sewage treatment plant is a production-oriented enterprise composed of a large number of equipment. For the operation and management of the equipment, maintenance

Maintenance and upkeep are important components that run through the daily management of the entire sewage treatment plant, and the costs incurred from this part are also a key item of daily cost expenditure for the sewage treatment plant. The cost of this part often confuses the managers of sewage treatment plants. How to calculate the maintenance and repair cost of a sewage treatment plant in order to be closer to the actual maintenance and repair cost of the sewage treatment plant?

The maintenance cost of equipment in sewage treatment plants is relatively easy to calculate. This part of the cost mainly focuses on the lubrication and maintenance of each set of equipment. The lubrication of each set of equipment is clearly specified in the equipment data. After the equipment is introduced or installed, this part of the data is carefully counted and summarized as economic cost expenditure. This part is the routine maintenance cost of the equipment, which is the fixed maintenance cost of the equipment and must be carefully implemented by every sewage treatment plant. If this part of the cost is ignored, these maintenance costs will be transferred to the maintenance cost, and the cost of expenditure is much higher than the maintenance cost, resulting in unnecessary expenses for the sewage treatment plant.

The additional maintenance cost is the cost of regular maintenance, which depends on factors such as the quality of the equipment itself, the technical level of the sewage plant maintenance staff, the maintenance cycle, and the contracting of maintenance. Regular maintenance serves as the operational guarantee for sewage treatment plant equipment, and sewage treatment plant managers should adopt different methods based on the technical level and equipment conditions within the plant. Let's compare this cost based on the actual situation of two sewage treatment plants.

Both sewage treatment plants have purchased imported centrifuges for sludge dewatering. When selling imported centrifuges, there are detailed instructions and requirements for equipment maintenance. Many imported equipment often consider post production services as a component of sales profits. However, foreign companies charge high fees for post production technical services. Many domestic sewage treatment plants do not attach importance to technical services, believing that technology is virtual and invisible, and that it is not as real as a product. Therefore, they do not recognize or accept the high prices of post production services for imported equipment. Both sewage treatment plants are facing post service issues with dewatering equipment. Factory A has adopted a post service approach, with a price of 50000 yuan per year. Equipment engineers come to the site every year to conduct comprehensive disassembly and maintenance of the equipment, inspect and maintain existing problems. The dewatering equipment has been in operation for more than 5 years, and there are also some minor issues, but it can basically meet the sludge production requirements of Factory A; Factory B believes that the price is too high. One reason is to find cheaper lubricating oil to replace the original high priced lubricating oil, which results in insufficient lubrication of the bearings, causing the bearing shells to lock up and smoke during operation. The other reason is that they did not accept the equipment manufacturer's follow-up maintenance. They sought local maintenance personnel to dismantle and repair the bearings, replaced them with non original ones, installed them, and powered them on for operation, causing them to lock up instantly and damage the bearings, resulting in very serious consequences. In the end, they had to ask the manufacturer to come to the factory for repair, which incurred even greater costs.

These two cases are very typical in many sewage treatment plants in China. The managers of sewage treatment plants underestimate technical services and do not recognize the value of knowledge products, resulting in more cost expenditures. However, they still do not take this as a warning and repeat such mistakes, even resorting to crude equipment replacement. This is a misconception in cost control. Maintenance costs should respect the cost of intellectual property rights and make reasonable estimates for this part, rather than going beyond intellectual property rights and adopting a simple and crude management model.

The equipment composition of sewage treatment plants is complex, and there are various factors that constrain the procurement process, resulting in complex and diverse maintenance and management costs during operation. It is impossible to use a unified standard to measure it. However, as an operation manager, it is important to respect the intellectual property rights of the equipment, maintain it carefully, and manage it scientifically. Only in this way can the later operation and maintenance costs of the equipment be controlled, and there is room for cost reduction in controllable cost management.

6. Management cost

The management costs of sewage treatment plants mainly focus on daily office expenses and other expenses. This part of the cost does not account for a large proportion of the overall cost, but it is complex and requires detailed statistics, including daily office expenses, heating costs, etc, The investment conversion costs counted in the PPP project (for PPP investors, these costs should be listed separately for the purpose of investment cost recovery and actuarial calculation. There is a detailed calculation method in economic accounting, because they are not closely related to the cost statistics generated by operation, the official account will not discuss them in detail), depreciation costs of equipment and facilities, catering costs with canteens, transportation vehicle costs, and some expenditures that need to be listed in separate accounts. These costs are complex and involve many management details. The sewage plant manager should list the detailed accounts of this part, compare them monthly, and conduct actuarial control of costs through monthly comparison.

The above costs are calculated from the perspective of overall management of sewage treatment plants, and are a common analysis. They are no longer divided according to the specific processes of each sewage treatment plant. This is suitable for personalized cost analysis of various types of sewage treatment plants.

How can managers of sewage treatment plants implement more effective cost control measures?

From the cost composition of the sewage treatment plant, we can see that the cost includes electricity, chemical fees, labor and other costs. Through a period of statistics, these costs can basically analyze the proportion relationship of various costs in the entire sewage treatment cost. If cost management is carried out, can we control the links with a large proportion of expenditure to achieve it? Some sewage treatment plants are also doing this, but in actual operation, it has been found that through cost selection control, strict control of electricity bills, implementation of gas supply control, control of reflux pump operation, etc., the results of control will have uncertain impacts on the process, and greater costs need to be invested to repair these impacts. From the long-term cost operation calculation, the cost savings through a single means are actually increasing.

How to avoid the result of seemingly cost control but actually increasing cost expenditures? Before solving this problem, let's take another perspective to understand the cost composition of sewage treatment plants: hard costs and soft costs.

There have been many discussions about the cost of software and hardware, but none have formed a very clear concept. It mainly exists in the individual understanding of cost. We can simply say that hard cost refers to the cost that can be clearly estimated numerically or the cost expenses that must be incurred in the production process. In sewage treatment plants, sewage is lifted from underground pipelines to sewage treatment structures, which is a prerequisite for ensuring the treatment of sewage in the plant. This process requires the operation of water pumps, which consume energy. The energy consumption is electricity, which is the cost of electricity. This expenditure in the cost of sewage treatment plants is called hard cost. For example, in municipal sewage treatment plants, most of them adopt the treatment method of aerobic microorganisms. Aerobic microorganisms gather in large numbers in the treatment structures of the sewage treatment plant, requiring a large amount of oxygen supply. The sewage treatment plant provides oxygen to the biological reaction tank through various methods, which require a large amount of energy to achieve. This energy consumption is the basic condition for the survival of microorganisms and is *. The cost of this part of energy consumption is the hard cost. If we look at it this way, each part of the cost structure of a sewage treatment plant can be seen as a hard cost, then what is a soft cost?

Soft costs can be understood as the portion of cost expenditures or benefits brought about by management in the production process. This type of cost cannot be directly quantified or accurately estimated, and its boundaries are also very vague. This type of cost comes more from managers' understanding and control of the production system, so it is referred to as soft cost. In the sewage treatment plants, especially in the northern sewage treatment plants, in the seasonal replacement stage every year, Nocardia and sulfur producing bacteria will multiply and grow in large numbers at a specific temperature, resulting in a large number of biological foam on the surface of the sewage biological pool. The process operators can inhibit and control the foam through effective control of the sludge age in advance, but it is difficult to eliminate the * *, so many sewage treatment plants optimize the water quality assurance in the selection of seasonal foam elimination and water quality assurance, thus reducing the cost of biological foam elimination, such as a large number of sprays, resulting in power or water cost consumption, and even being induced by the advertising of some pharmaceutical manufacturers, resulting in a reduction in the cost of biological foam elimination. The cost of purchasing the so-called foam eliminator is a manifestation of the soft cost of the sewage treatment plant. In the actual production activities of sewage treatment plants, soft costs often infiltrate into various links, and if analyzed through technology, the huge role of soft costs can often be seen. The sludge dewatering of the sewage plant needs to add PAM agent. As a macromolecule agent, it costs a lot. If we simply manage and control from the perspective of hard cost, we can simply reduce the sludge, or even not de sludge, which can reduce the cost of the agent. However, the sludge age of the activated sludge in the biological system of sewage treatment caused by non de sludge is too long, and the sludge aging, which leads to sludge foam and sludge bulking, requires the sewage plant to invest more costs to manage. This is the misunderstanding of the sewage plant managers on production management, and also the expenditure of soft costs, which is an important reason for the high cost of the sewage plant.

From the analysis of soft and hard costs, it can be clearly seen that in the operation and management of a sewage plant, in order to more accurately control operating costs, it is more important to control soft costs. Soft costs are the foundation of controlling sewage plants, and can also be seen as a reflection of the management level of sewage plants. Before a clear concept of cost management, cost management often becomes superficial or strict from a single link, ignoring the systematic management requirements of sewage treatment in the sewage treatment plant, making cost control a one-sided reduction. The cost control of sewage treatment plants cannot be achieved solely through cost management. A more systematic cost control concept is needed to truly achieve cost management and optimization.

Due to the particularity of soft cost itself, higher requirements for personnel management quality, and dependence on individual understanding ability, it sometimes acts more like a cost black hole. When management and technical capabilities cannot reach their edge control, it becomes a very huge black hole for the cost expenditure of sewage plants, and generates a huge black hole effect, absorbing a large amount of costs into it. However, it is difficult to clearly state which costs do not need to be generated. This cost black hole composed of soft cost is a huge trap that restricts the cost control of sewage plants.

In many sewage treatment plants, some of the ideas of sewage plant managers lack a comprehensive understanding of sewage treatment production, and do not think about costs from the overall management of sewage production. The managers' one-sided and limited understanding of production also leads to simple and rough decision-making. They separate the production links of the sewage plant for analysis and statistics, and then obtain simple cost calculations, and then implement cost management on this basis. The result often leads to negative feedback in the system, and the expected goals are not achieved, so it has to be hastily concluded, and even greater costs need to be paid for subsequent compensation. This type of cost management reflects the importance of soft cost management. Without reasonable technical support and in-depth cost analysis, it is difficult to implement cost management for each link in the sewage plant. The intricate connections have not been smoothed out, Cost control can only be a mirage. How can we effectively control costs in the production and operation mode of sewage treatment plants?

Many of the costs of the sewage plant are visible costs. The management and control of these costs is a popular management content for managers in emphasizing cost management. However, the fourth part of the official account in the cost control from the operational perspective talks about the position of invisible soft costs in costs, which is also a difficult point for managers in the cost control of the sewage plant. Only by effectively carrying out reasonable management and control of soft and hard costs can we finally achieve reasonable control of the cost of the sewage plant. What are the key points for controlling software and hardware costs? Next, let's explore the key points of comprehensive cost control for sewage treatment plants:

1. Understand the core process content of sewage treatment plants.

For a special industry like sewage treatment plants, the various sewage treatment microorganisms that are not visible to the naked eye play a leading role in sewage treatment. These microorganisms have different roles in the sewage treatment process, treating different pollutants in the sewage. The manager of a sewage treatment plant must be clear that the management of the sewage treatment plant is to serve these microorganisms and provide them with a more comfortable living environment, so that they can exert their special living habits in a comfortable environment, thereby removing pollutants from the sewage. This is the core content of the management of the sewage treatment plant. Only by fully understanding this management core can we understand the focus around which the cost of sewage treatment plants is generated.

For any sewage treatment plant, the allocation of funds determines the direction and size of cost generation. With a deep understanding of the core treatment process of the sewage treatment plant, managers can invest reasonable funds into the core production process. Through the expenditure of funds and costs in the core process, the efficiency of the sewage treatment plant can be maximized. This case can actually be seen in the cost analysis of many sewage treatment plants. In some sewage treatment plants, equipment management is always lagging behind, or equipment is considered auxiliary, and the management focus is on process adjustment rather than equipment. However, in a stable sewage treatment plant, the equipment at each stage plays a role in ensuring that the microorganisms in the biological pool have a good living environment. For example, in the process of phosphorus and nitrogen removal, the thruster or agitator of the anaerobic tank. In anaerobic environments, due to the lack of bottom aeration and bubble agitation, the activated sludge mixture is easily stratified and precipitated in a static environment. After settling to the bottom, the activated sludge does not have a suspended state, and the contact area and space with pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus in the water will be reduced. The reaction effect will decrease, and the water quality will exceed the standard. If it exceeds the standard, a large amount of funds need to be invested in water quality adjustment and restoration, which will inevitably increase operating costs. If we can fully understand that the equipment of sewage treatment plants provides a guarantee for the survival environment of the core microorganisms in sewage treatment, we can fully consider the maintenance costs of key equipment in terms of funding and cost tilt, which is a better measure for the cost and operation of sewage treatment plants.

2. Depth of learning and understanding of core processes.

The sewage treatment plant with microbial based activated sludge as the core process only understands its core role and importance, and should have achieved the primary stage of cost management. It should be able to allocate funds reasonably, invest a larger proportion of funds in the core process, and reduce costs as a whole through investment in the core. But with the continuous improvement of the effluent quality standards of sewage treatment plants by the outside world, the treatment cost and even the core treatment cost of sewage treatment plants are constantly increasing. Are these costs * expenditures? Or can control be achieved through management? This is the second point we want to discuss, the level of learning and understanding of core processing techniques.

The biological treatment process of sewage plants is a very complex biochemical process. Throughout the entire sewage treatment process, the reaction mechanism of microorganisms is complex, and there are many control factors. In depth learning of these reaction mechanisms is a requirement for the operation and management of sewage plants, meeting water quality standards, and also a higher requirement for cost control. For example, in the current requirements for phosphorus and nitrogen removal, biological phosphorus removal has a good removal effect on phosphorus. In process regulation, attention should be paid to the reasonable discharge of residual sludge to maintain an appropriate sludge age. By controlling the sludge age, the process of phosphorus aggregation and release can be alternated, thereby achieving the effect of biological phosphorus removal. However, if one does not delve into the reaction mechanism of biological phosphorus removal in sewage treatment plants and does not strive to reduce phosphorus in water as much as possible through biological phosphorus removal, and simply relies on chemical agents for phosphorus removal, a large amount of phosphorus removal agents need to be added, which will generate a large amount of chemical sludge and increase the amount of sludge removal production in the sludge section. From the cost expenditure, it can be seen that the expenses for chemical agents and sludge removal have added additional costs to the original biological phosphorus removal cost, which is caused by insufficient understanding of the biological system.

The depth of learning and understanding of core processes can be said to involve all aspects of sewage treatment plants. For example, in the sludge dewatering process, the requirements for flocculants are different for activated sludge in different operating states. During the expansion period, activated sludge needs to be pre flocculated reasonably to reduce the moisture content entering the dewatering machine, improve the operating efficiency of the dewatering machine, process more dry matter, and significantly reduce sludge concentration. This can effectively control sludge expansion and restore the good working conditions of activated sludge. During this period, there will be the cost of pre coagulation agents, as well as the cost of desliming agents, electricity, personnel, transportation, etc., resulting from the prolonged operation time of the dewatering machine. However, if managers believe that the cost of flocculants is high and increase the production of sludge workshops to reduce sludge concentration, this part of the cost should not be incurred. They hope that the regulation of the biological stage will prolong the control time of activated sludge expansion, and the expansion will continue to erupt, causing an increase in pollution in the subsequent production process, resulting in sludge carrying in the effluent of the secondary sedimentation tank, blockage of the deep treatment unit structure, increased dosage, frequent filtration blockage, increased backwashing frequency, and some sludge being brought into the contact tank. After a long period of anaerobic treatment, it will float up and affect the effluent quality, causing environmental accidents and greater cost expenditures.

From the above case, it can be seen that for many sewage treatment plants, a deep understanding of the core process and in-depth learning of the core process are the primary factors for cost control. Without understanding and learning of the internal process, and without incorporating the operation of the process and the growth and decline of microorganisms into management and control, cost control in sewage treatment plants is just empty talk. Even though we have done many projects, we still find that cost control has little effect, which is due to the lack of understanding and comprehension of the core content of the process operation in sewage treatment plants, resulting in our cost control being aimless and ultimately becoming useless.

3. Management and control of details.

The first two points are discussions on the process characteristics of the sewage treatment industry, and now we will discuss cost control from a general perspective of enterprise management. Many successful enterprises, especially traditional production-oriented enterprises, mostly obtain good benefits from detail management, that is, cost optimization and control are achieved through detail management.

Due to the different construction processes in different regions, sewage treatment plants have various business models. Some are under the management of large enterprises and are managed in a factory like manner; Some of them are sewage treatment plants operated under the original municipal system, managed under a semi business and semi enterprise management model. In the comparison of sewage treatment plants with different business models, it can be found that the cost of sewage treatment plants with large-scale factory like detailed management is generally lower than that of sewage treatment plants with complex systems. From the actual research on enterprise management and sewage treatment plants, it can be found that there is a significant gap between the two in terms of detail management.

Factory style detail management pursues controllability and management of every detail, while mixed system detail management often lacks corresponding management guidelines and appears chaotic in details. A simple small detail is that many sewage treatment plants have a large number of outdoor structures, which have many electrical operating equipment and control cabinets. In the factory, these are the control links for equipment operation. During daily inspections, these control cabinets are carefully inspected, dust is cleaned, internal electrical components are checked, and their good working conditions are maintained at all times. However, in some non factory sewage treatment plants, the doors of the electrical control cabinets are kept open for a long time, and the cables and wiring inside the cabinets are rusty. The contacts of the contactors are often affected by wind, sand, dust, and water vapor, resulting in poor contact and frequent electrical control failures of the equipment; Even some sewage treatment plants have bird nests inside their electrical control cabinets. The negligence of these details can cause equipment malfunctions or even damage, resulting in higher costs for maintenance. However, if details are carefully managed in daily life, they can often be prevented in advance, reducing the number of equipment failures and lowering maintenance costs. This is a small aspect of detail management, which can be extended to more aspects, such as daily refueling of equipment, sewage treatment plants with well managed details, and lubricating grease that will be replaced within the specified time to ensure the stable operation of equipment. Sewage treatment plants with chaotic details only realize the lubrication problem of equipment when it is damaged; Many sewage treatment plants use rotating grilles. When the grille reaches a high point and rotates, the slag will fall to the position behind the grille. With proper detail management, this part of the slag will be kept clean at all times to avoid entering the subsequent treatment structures. The inadequate factory allows these slag bars to pile up like mountains, slide into the channels behind the bars, and enter the subsequent facilities and equipment, causing blockages, wear and tear, entanglement, and other faults to the subsequent facilities and equipment, and then spending more costs on maintenance and repair, increasing a lot of cost expenditures

Details such as these exist in almost every aspect of the sewage treatment plant, which requires every manager to bend down carefully, conduct detailed investigations at every site, analyze possible problems, refine management to every small link, establish a refined management system, constrain the daily work content of each operating employee, and achieve efficiency and cost reduction from detailed management. The content of this kind of detailed management has been extensively discussed in many enterprise management knowledge, so we will not delve into it here. You can learn from a large amount of enterprise management knowledge.