Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part I (2025)

Membrane-based seawater desalination is increasingly vital to India’s water security, yet it remains one of the country’s most energy-intensive water-supply options. Over the past two decades, global technological advances have halved the specific energy consumption of reverse-osmosis (RO) plants, but further improvements must now come as much from smarter operations as from new hardware. This study reframes state-of-the-art energy-saving measures through the lens of lean management, showing how proven lean tools can eliminate process “waste” (muda) and unlock latent performance gains across Indian desalination facilities.
First, we review the theoretical minimum work of separation and quantify the energy gap that still exists in typical Indian RO plants. We then map eight high-impact lean interventions—value-stream mapping, 5S workplace organization, Kaizen events, SMED-inspired membrane-change protocols, total productive maintenance (TPM), Kanban-driven chemical inventory control, visual management dashboards, and cross-functional gemba walks—to specific unit operations such as seawater intake, high-pressure pumping, membrane trains, and post-treatment.
Next, we integrate these lean practices with technology enablers already shown to reduce kWh m⁻³: low-recovery and split-permeate two-pass configurations, three-center RO layouts, high-productivity membranes, large-diameter efficient pumps, and pressure-exchanger energy-recovery systems. By synchronizing people, processes, and technology, Indian plants can achieve up to 20 % additional energy savings, 15 % throughput gains, and significant reductions in unplanned downtime—without major capital expenditure.
Finally, we discuss emerging desalination concepts (e.g., isobaric batch RO, membrane distillation hybrids, and advanced brine mining) and outline a roadmap for Indian operators to incorporate continuous-improvement cycles, digital twins, and real-time lean metrics. The synthesis demonstrates that lean management is not merely complementary but essential to maximising the operational and environmental performance of India’s next generation of seawater-to-tap desalination plants.