The Analysis of Decision-making Items for Operation Management of Digital Twin Simulators for Sewage and Water Treatment Facilities

Abstract

This paper addresses the derivation of decision-making factors for the operation and management of the Cyber Physical systems (CPS)-linked wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) simulator. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method was applied to evaluate the importance of each influencing factor on the operational elements targeting experts. Here, the experts were 37 people working for WWTPs and 30 people working for DWTPs, respectively. The analysis factors for decision-making were influent load, reactor capacity, treatment process, occurrence of high turbidity influent, risk, urgency, response, and recovery, and their relative importance was analyzed. Among the operational elements of WWTPs, influent fluctuations have been shown as the most important factor. Conversely, the possibility of occurrence was found to be the most important influencing factor. In the case of DWTPs, the inflow of high turbidity was found to be the main operating factor, and the influencing factors were the probability of occurrence and the degree of risk. Based upon the results obtained, this study is expected to contribute to the establishment of a stable system of both WWTPs and DWTPS by identifying influent fluctuations, which are a major influencing factor, and by controlling operation factors connected with the establishment of a digital twin simulation.