• Blog
  • Wastewater Testing
  • Bioaugmentation Applications
  • Useful Information
  • About Us
BIOLOGICAL WASTE TREATMENT EXPERT
Contact Us

Industry Inflection Points - You can be acted upon or drive the change

10/25/2017

 
I posted this on my LinkedIn account, but think the Environmental Geoomics - molecular biochemistry diagnostics - being developed by Aster Bio is going to give engineers and wastewater operators are new level of insight into the biological composition of their MLSS. With this knowledge, we can see how changes in operations impact system performance and treatment costs. Therefore, I see this as a key inflection point.

I recently read Andrew Grooves' Only the Paranoid Survive - while it was published in 1996, the discussion of inflection points in an industry are even more relevant today in times of rapid technical changes, international market forces, and customers having access to more options and product information. The book describes the Intel experience of being acted upon during an inflection point related to Japanese competition in memory chips (Intel was on the wrong end of this inflection point) and then the microprocessor (PC) infection point that Intel helped drive. His point was simply, it is better to drive the change rather than be unaware or acted upon by the changes in your market.
My experience in inflection points comes from my career in the wastewater bioaugmentation market - we help people biologically treat wastewater via tools for adjusting the microbial populations in the target system. Prior to the late 1990s, advanced biological wastewater treatment was still fairly new to most industrial customers. Most of the business was triggered by spills, mechanical failure, or increased treatment requirements. Increased use of monitoring, diversion, flow equilization, and even tighter control in production areas, began making emergency response less common.
Being Acted Upon by the MarketThe bioaugmentation industry tried to market the same core technology to new markets but did not engage in primary R&D to identify innovation opportunities and drive truly new technologies. When Aster Bio was founded in 2003, we realized that new technology was key if we were not going to be a "me too" player in the industry. We started with new production techniques to identify and add new organisms to bioaugmentation products. The early work was the first significant changes in marketed products since the early 1980s. The more sophisticated user and increased regulation of microbial products was a "blip" indicating that market changes were occurring. In creating new products and searching for new markets, we were being acted upon by changes in the market.
Opportunity to Drive the Next Inflection PointWith the advent of equipment for high throughput DNA (NGS) sequencing - we finally had a tool for evaluating mixed cultures samples and determining how mixed groups of organisms were treating the waste. At first NGS testing required high dollar equipment, long reaction times, and database/bioinformatics were still being created. Only in the last three years has NGS technology development led to a potential inflection point or a disruptive technology. The challenge is taking output from novelty information to actionable steps at the operator level.
At Aster Bio, we decided to not just use the technology for bioprospecting new strains. We see molecular diagnostics and screens - technologies we call Environmental Genomics - as a new tool for directly observing the organisms inside a biological waste treatment unit. Once observed, we can determine how any change - including new influent compounds, operational changes, or biomass optimization - work at a microbial level. Discovering the best microbial makeup for waste treatment allows operators to establish better controls. Aster Bio plans to navigate this technological inflection point by building new molecular testing protocols, wastewater specific microbial bioinformatic databases, and drive improvements in our bioaugmentation products. With the new technologies working in tandem, Aster Bio plans to make biological wastewater treatment units more predictable when faced with challenges with the end goal being lowering overall treatment costs.

Comments are closed.

    Author

    Erik Rumbaugh has been involved in biological waste treatment for over 20 years. He has worked with industrial and municipal wastewater  facilities to ensure optimal performance of their treatment systems. He is a founder of Aster Bio (www.asterbio.com) specializing in biological waste treatment.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    RSS Feed

    Click to set custom HTML

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos used under Creative Commons from Picturepest, marcoverch, perzonseowebbyra, Picturepest, Picturepest, dsearls, dungodung, Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, aqua.mech, vastateparksstaff, hile, Aaron Volkening, amishsteve, Neil DeMaster, mklwong88, KOMUnews, Picturepest, kaibara87