STTA Electrical Engineer _ Specialized Trainer in Operations and Maintenance
Fulltime- short term contract
June 22, 2021
July 07, 2021
A. BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
The purpose of the USAID-funded Iraq Governance and Performance Accountability (IGPA/Takamul) project is to advance effective, accountable, and transparent governance in Iraq. This USAID effort, implemented by DAI, is working with the Government of Iraq (GOI) at all levels to better respond to citizen needs by supporting reform initiatives and Iraqi change agents on inclusive governance and public sector transparency, accountability, and economy. Reform initiatives include support to improve service delivery functions, public financial management, and open government initiatives. IGPA/Takamul supports the GOI and the citizens of Iraq in forming partnerships and collaborative efforts to solve problems jointly.
IGPA/Takamul has four (4) objectives:
1. Enhance GOI service delivery capacity
2. Improve public financial management (PFM)
3. Strengthen monitoring and oversight of service delivery and public expenditure
4. Support Iraqi change agents (cross-cutting objective)
ACTIVITY PURPOSE AND SUMMARY
Water Directorates throughout federal Iraq and Kurdistan rely on diesel standby power systems to operate their potable water treatment plants when the commercial power supply is interrupted, however Water Directorate staff are often not properly trained to operate and maintain the diesel generator systems. The systems include a generator, motor, control board, power switch, exhaust and grounding system, and fuel storage system. As such, when the commercial power is lost/dropped at the water treatment and pumping stations, the entire water system fails to continue to operate without a functional standby power system. This results in local communities losing their potable water supplies and having to purchase water from commercial water delivery trucks, which often provide water that may be unsuitable for drinking.
This activity will focus on providing the Water Directorate O&M staff both classroom and hands-on- training on their standby power systems. The training support will also include assistance to Erbil KRG Water Directorates, in developing and using operation and maintenance manuals for their standby power systems. These materials would be shared with other water directorates to ensure wider usage. This activity will include helping the Water Directorate O&M staff develop a spare parts inventory list and procurement guide for materials routinely needed to perform maintenance on their diesel standby power systems and would be shared with other water directorates to ensure wider usage. The activity will also include performing an initial assessment of the existing generator sets that the supported Water Directorates have and make recommendations in how their emergency power systems could be upgraded or modified to gain improved electricity generation, noise reduction, environmental protection, safety, fuel economy, and better equipment life expectancy. These recommendations will help the Water Directorates in planning new equipment repairs and upgrades as well as capital expenditures (CAPEX) for emergency power production needs.
It is anticipated that this activity will impact the ability of the Water Directorates to provide treated, potable water when the commercial power systems go down, improving service delivery of the Water Directorates and increasing the confidence of communities served by these Directorates. Moreover, the technical skills of the O&M staff will be improved, enabling the Water Directorates to improve the upkeep of their standby power systems, thus reducing expensive repairs and waste of capital expenditures funds. Improving the Water Directorates skills will enable the water directorates to provide larger quantities of water and longer service hours.
Under this activity, IGPA/Takamul, will be hiring 2 STTAs, one Electrical Engineer and one Mechanical Engineer to conduct the initial assessment, develop the training materials addressing challenges related to Operation and Maintenance, Electrical and Mechanical aspects of standby power generation systems, conduct the training for the water directorates in Erbil and write one final report. All aspects of this scope of work will be done jointly and requires collaboration between the two selected consultants.
B. OBJECTIVE
The objective of this activity is to provide the Water Directorate O&M staff in Erbil with both classroom and hands-on-training on their standby power systems. The following are more specific objectives aligned with this overall objective:
Objective 1: Perform an initial assessment of the existing generator sets in the water directorates, assessing the inventory of spare parts and maintenance tools, as well as a staff profile to support the Water Directorates in developing more effective operations and maintenance procedures.
Objective 2: Support the Water Directorates in Erbil province to provide more reliable service of potable water due to decreased power outages.
C. ACTIVITY SUMMARY/DESCRIPTION
The main purpose of this activity is to support Erbil water directorates in ensuring that a consistent stream of water is supplied year-round to the public in these provinces. This will be done through stand by power systems O&M training for staff, which will be conducted both in classroom and through hands- on-training, support to the Erbil Water Directorates in developing and using operation and maintenance manuals for their standby power systems and helping the Water Directorate O&M staff develop a spare parts inventory list and procurement guide for materials routinely needed to perform maintenance on their diesel standby power systems.
D. TASKS/DETAILED REQUIREMENTS
Task 1: Participate in kick-off meeting with IGPA/Takamul.
Both STTAs will collaborate to submit a single implementation plan jointly within one week of signing the contract (10 pages maximum). The implementation plan must consist of the following components:
- A description of the project lifecycle including the tasks and deliverables under each phase, with a completion timeline for each of these tasks.
- The allocated resources for each task, including the identification of a key person within the Water Directorate that can approve and implement recommendations put forth in other tasks of this activity, and proposed change agents within the Directorate who can advocate for the continued use of materials developed beyond the timeline of this activity. This will also include at least 1 representative from the MOCHMPW provincial training center to ensure that similar trainings can be conducted in the future to other water directorates.
- A communication protocol that describes how communication will be managed during the project in order to ensure the exchange of the needed information at the right time, content and to the right persons(s)
- A risk management assessment that identifies the key risks in the project and the proposed response plans to deal with them.
Task 2: Conduct Baseline Assessment
Both STTAs will perform jointly a baseline assessment of the existing generator that the supported Water Directorates to include the following:
- Assess and make recommendations for how emergency power systems could be upgraded or modified to gain improved electricity generation, noise reduction, environmental protection, safety, fuel economy, and better equipment life expectancy. The STTA’s will engage the identified change agent in this assessment process to transfer assessment skills to water directorate staff.
- Identify the operation and efficiency, and determine and measure the key performance indicators such as the average production capacity, pump run-time, water flows in case meters, number of generators run hours etc, and to use these indicators to measure improvement later.
- Examine current operation and preventive maintenance practices, as well as maintenance records and information, as available to determine these values.
- Provide an assessment report including all the data gathered as well propose the recommendations for upgrading and suggestion on system used for managing data
- This report should be not more than 10 pages, written in both Arabic and English language.
Task 3: Inventory of spare parts and maintenance tools
The STTAs will collaborate to prepare an inventory of spare parts and maintenance tools required at the
location.
- Inventory spare parts and maintenance equipment in the selected plants and accordingly create an inventory list detailing the minimum level of spare parts and components and maintenance tools that must be available at each water treatment plants to operate efficiently.
- Help the Water Directorate O&M staff develop routines procedures and protocols needed to perform maintenance on their diesel standby power systems, and develop an ordering scheme to expedite spare part replacement. The change agents identified at these plants should be involved in the development of routines, procedures and protocols to ensure that the plans proposed are sustainable.
Task 4: Develop maintenance staff profile
The STTA’s will collaborate to develop a staff profile of team members involved in maintenance for Erbil relevant water treatment plant components. This profile is meant to help the Directorates understand the skillsets required and training necessary to optimize operations at the respective plants. The profile will cover the following information:
- The number of operators involved in maintenance processes and their specialty.
- The qualifications of these operators, including a gap analysis to identify the needed education, experience, skills, knowledge and training to successfully complete the job.
Task 5: Prepare preventive maintenance SOPs
Based on the findings of the baseline assessment of the plants and discussions with the plant operators, change agents and the water directorates in the two provinces, the STTA’s shall prepare detailed procedures that describe how the work will be carried out to conduct preventive maintenance of the power generators and components of each of the 2 water plants. These procedures will be designed in the form of simple reference documents and guidelines to be used during on-the-job training to build operators’ capacities and improve maintenance procedures. The SOPs shall include but not be limited to the following:
- A description of the plants and their key components.
- A detailed description of the procedures used to conduct preventive maintenance of the power generators and each of these components, and how to plan for the maintenance operation on regular basis (this should include details on timing of the routine maintenance and a description of the staff skillset required to conduct this maintenance).
- The documents/templates that should be used to support the implementation of the processes, with clear guidelines on how to use and complete them.
- The SOPs shall be supported with graphical illustrations and pictures as much as possible.
Task 6: Conduct Trainings
Both STTAs will develop and conduct O&M the training to support the water treatment plants in Erbil province and for their treatment plants’ generators and standby power systems.
- Train a total of 6 O&M Water Directorate staff on O&M training to support the water treatment plants in one (1) Water Directorate as well as one (1) representative from the MOCHMPW provincial training center to ensure that they can deliver similar training in the future to other water directorates. The training will be for 5 consecutive days, delivered to staff designated by the water directorates. This training will take place on-site in the designated water treatment plants, to make sure that the training can be implemented practically and that the STTA can address issues operators face in their day-to-day work.
- The STTAs will select two (2) of the trainees from the group of trained operators and one (1) representative from the MOCHMPW provincial training center (total of 3) to become trainers who can transfer knowledge about the O&M of the WTPs in the future. The selection of these trainers will be done in coordination with the Erbil Water Directorate.
- The STTAs will design and conduct a 5-days (ToT) program (classroom and on-site) for the selected 3 and possibly more operators.
- Prepare a training report documenting the results of the O&M training and the TOT Training.
- Conduct one final workshop for 14 participants for the Directorate staff from the province and two (2) representative from the MOCHMPW provincial training center (a total of 16 participants) on developed SOPs and standby power systems and prepare a report summarizing the outcomes of the Workshop.
- Furthermore, both IGPA/Takamul STTAs will support the preparation of a short, simplified version of maintenance procedures in the form of hand-outs for skilled operators with simple instructions for their day-to-day use.
Task 7: Draft final report.
The final report (joint effort of both STTAs) must include a detailed description of the consultant’s work on each task, as well as include a detailed lessons learned section that captures the successes and challenges of the activity. This section should identify best practices that can be shared and replicated across future activities, as well as an analysis describing implementation or planning challenges, with recommendations for overcoming these challenges in the future. The Final Report will be not more than 15 pages long, written in both Arabic and English language.
ACTIVITY LOCATION
This activity will support Water Directorate in the following province: Erbil.
DETAILED DELIVERY/PAYMENT SCHEDULE
The duration of the implementation of this SOW is (16) weeks from the date the contract is signed.
Requirements of this Statement of Work – as per deliverables included in the table below:
E. Qualifications:
The 2 STTA’s need to have the following minimum qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in
- Electrical Engineering and / or Mechanical Engineering
- Experienced in water Operations and Maintenance
- Strong analytical and research skills, including data analysis.
- Expertise in result‐based management, gender equality, and capacity building are also important.
- Experience in running and managing O&M training and capacity building programs
- Experience in developing and training with SOP’s
- Experience in report writing in Arabic, Kurdish and English
- Familiarity with the Iraqi generators system, administration, and organizational framework.
- A minimum five (5) years of experience working with USAID funded projects is desired.
- Knowledge of the Iraqi national and sub-national level of government, development, and service delivery context
- Proven track record of managing similar projects, including O&M training related to service delivery institutions
F. General Statement
The STTA’s will be based in Erbil
DAI will cover all other indirect implementation costs including transportation, and phone communications.
G. Monitoring and Evaluation:
The STTA’s is required to review and agree to the MEL requirements which will be shared upon selection of the STTA’s.
How to apply: You can address your application to: IGPArecruitment@dai.com Your application will not be taken into consideration if you do not insert the position title in subject line of your e mail. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Applications will not be accepted after the closing date. This position is for Iraqi nationals only.
