2018 ISA WWAC Symposium

SCADA + Integrated Asset Management = Cost Savings

Alan Hudson
VTScada software by Trihedral
4700 Millenia Lakes Blvd, Suite 260, Orlando, FL 32839
alan.hudson@trihedral.com Birmingham, AL 205-612-6665

KEYWORDS
SCADA, CMMS, Asset Management, Integrated, Savings

ABSTRACT

When the City of Eufaula AL began their quest to have their new asset management software be
integrated with their new SCADA system, they knew they would be blazing a path. Their vision of the
integrated system included cost savings, personnel efficiencies, and simplified operations. What they
weren’t sure of was the quantifiable impact.

During the design phase of the project, the consultant had painted the picture of what could be expected
but since very few integrated systems had actually been implemented, the projections were mainly
educated speculations. Furthermore, the interfaces between the software packages were theoretical and
had not been thoroughly tested, but they had a commitment from the software providers that it could be
done.

It’s now been over a year since the CMMS asset management software was integrated with the SCADA
software. The dramatic cost savings have been documented and the personnel efficiencies have been
realized. This result is a testimony to the ingenuity and dedication of everyone involved in this project.
Now it’s time to pass along the vision, technology, and road map so others can follow down the same path
of cost savings and operational efficiencies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan Hudson is US Sales Manager for Trihedral Engineering. Alan holds degrees in Mathematics from
Samford University and Electrical Engineering from Auburn University and has been in the water
wastewater segment for 28 years with experience in engineering, consultative design, programming, and
system integration.

Contact: alan.hudson@trihedral.com

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 2

INTRODUCTION

Everyone wants to save money. At least that’s what we say. But do our actions support our intentions or
do we just give it “lip service” and then find reasons to justify falling short? Sometimes the reasons are
due to technological challenges, unfulfilled promises, and unintended consequences. However, the
wonderful thing about technology is that it is always changing, building upon the successes of the past,
and providing many advancements and applications that allow us to meet our lofty goals. As Jim Rohn has
said, “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”

For the City of Eufaula, Alabama, and their consultant, Goodwyn Mills & Cawood, they knew the
technologies were available and felt confident in the commitments of the vendors and integrators. They
also knew their goals - cost savings, personnel efficiencies, and simplified operations. They knew they
would be doing something that many municipalities desired but relatively few accomplished. And they
were ready for the challenge!

For the vendors and integrators, the open connectivity standards like OPC and ODBC were the key. They
also knew that the industry would continue to hone those current technologies as well as develop new
ones that would make the connectivity easier and more robust and continue to add benefits to the overall
system.

When this project’s integration was completed and the City had time to test the implementation, they
knew they had realized their goals. The personnel efficiencies and simplified operations were quickly
noticed, but it took a year of running the system to fully realize the cost savings of having the asset
management system closely coupled to the SCADA system. The first year savings and the projected ROI
validated their design decisions.

History has proven that appropriately embracing technologies provide the best opportunities for success.
For municipalities, embracing new technologies too quickly often exposes them to unnecessary risk.
Embracing too late can cause legacy support and migration issues. Fortunately, technologies in our
industry are intentional and remain relevant for many years. Let’s discuss those technologies.

AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM

The term “integrated system” takes on many meanings. For the purpose of this discussion, let’s use the
following definitions:

• System Integration: The process of bringing together the component sub-systems into one system
(an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the overarching
functionality) and ensuring that the subsystems function together as a system, and the process of
linking together different computing systems and software applications functionally to act as a
coordinated whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_integration
• Enterprise Integration: The process of linking such applications within a single organization
together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible,

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 3

while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or
data structures. Applications an be linked at the back-end via APIs or (seldomly) the front-end
(GUI). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_application_integration

In the world of Water and Wastewater, we normally think of an integrated system in terms of the
following components and sub-systems. The Field sub-system has consistent standards which are usually
integrated with minimal difficulty.

• Field instruments (level, pressure, flow, etc.)

• Field controls (Hand-Off-Auto, Start/Stop or On/Off, Running/Stopped, etc.)
• Field equipment management (VFD Speed, Voltage, Current, Power, etc.)
• Security or Safety indications (Intrusion Alarms, Door Open, Chlorine Leak, etc.)
• Programmable controllers (PLCs and RTUs)
• Communication systems (Ethernet, Serial, Radio, Cellular, etc.)
• Communication protocols (Ethernet IP, Modbus, DNP3.0, etc.)
• SCADA software

Then, we often sub-segment the SCADA software system into various operational components. These sub-
systems are somewhat standard for the first three items but then take different paths for the next four
items. Thus the complexity and uncertainty begins.

• Communication systems (gathering of data from the field)

• Real-time information availability (for screen display)
• Operational Security (Username/Password, View/Control/Modify/Develop/etc)
• System Security (application development, cyber-security, computer vulnerability)
• Alarm Systems (operational, alarm notification (dial-up, text, email), historical log)
• Event Backup (operational changes, actions taken)
• Historian (historical backup of real-time data, trending, data analysis)

Finally, connectivity and interoperability to other systems is employed. This is where design decisions
often face difficulty, project goals go unrealized, and vendor selections become critical.

• CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) (work orders, maintenance)

• LIMS (Laboratory Information Management Systems) (laboratory testing, data)
• GIS (Geographic Information System) (analyze geographic and spatial data)
• Municipality emergency response systems

INTEGRATED SYSTEM TECHNOLOGIES

Let’s focus on the integrated system at the computer software level. To remind us of the Enterprise
Integration definition, one key phrase is “simplify and automate business process, while at the same time
avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures.” To accomplish

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 4

this, we must give credence to proven industry standards, be careful with emerging technologies until fully
developed and tested, and resist the urge to go with proprietary systems with unrealistic promises.

Two industry-proven standards for water wastewater systems are:

• OPC – Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control, or Open Platform Communications
o Established in 1996 for the purpose of creating a standard interface to share data among
instruments, controllers, software, and enterprise systems
o Includes standards like OPC Classic and OPC-UA
OPC Classic includes OPC DA (Data Access), OPC AE (Alarms & Events), and OPC
HAD (Historical Data Access)
OPC-UA (Unified Architecture) was created in 2008 for the purpose of defining
query methods and analytics that may be applied to historical, time-stamped
data.
o See more at www.opcfoundation.org
o Relies on close cooperation among organizations and vendors in order to develop
standards
www.opcfoundation.org/markets-collaboration

• ODBC – Open Database Connectivity

o Created in 1992 for the purpose of creating a standard API (application program interface)
for accessing database management systems.
o The aim was to make it independent of database systems or operating systems
o Applications using ODBC can be ported to other platforms with few changes to the data
access code.

THE IoT (INTERNET of THINGS) PROTOCOLS

While the purpose of this paper is not to go into a full discussion of emerging and converging technologies,
we need to at least acknowledge the technologies we should follow. Some technologies continue to

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 5

mature and address the shortcomings while other technologies may become irrelevant. The terms IoT and
IIoT are causing some of the confusion by promising great advancements while often only reapplying or
tweaking existing technologies. Even so, the technological advancements are quite impressive and will
definitely lead to the next generation of connectivity.

In contrast to the Poll/Response methodology of traditional SCADA communication protocols, the IIoT
protocols operate on Client/Server and Publish/Subscribe methodologies. Poll/Response networks require
a well planned system configuration. Client/Server systems also work best in planned infrastructures.
Publish/Subscribe protocols are a better choice when the infrastructure is unknown.

Client/Server protocols require the client to connect to the server and make requests for the data. The
servers hold the data and respond to the client’s requests. In this application, the client must have
knowledge about the servers and be able to connect. These systems are generally less scalable due to
point-to-point connectivity requirements.

Client/Server protocols:
• HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol - A connectionless client/server protocol prolific throughout IT
and the Internet; many open source tools available; virtually every coding language has HTTP
libraries.
• JSON – JavaScript Object Notation – a lightweight data-interchange format with objects and
arrays.
• XML – Extensible Markup Language – similar to JSON but longer and slower; it is a language, not a
format.
• REST – Representative State Transfer – A stateless protocol where the client accesses resources on
the server via requests.
• OPC-UA – OPC Unified Architecture – Next generation OPC that provides standard interfaces to
PLCs and devices.

The Publish/Subscribe protocols require the devices to connect and publish data to a “broker.” Consumers
of the data can connect to the broker and subscribe to the data. When the remote device sends data to
the broker, the subscriber will then get the updated data. These systems are more scalable because the
publishers and subscribers are managed independently.

Publish/Subscribe protocols:
• MQTT – Message Queuing Telemetry Transport – Geared toward minimal overhead and reliable
communications; not infrastructure dependent; based on the TCP protocol; seems to be gaining
popularity and acceptability.

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 6

SCADA + INTEGRATED ASSET MANAGEMENT = COST SAVINGS

Now back to the City of Eufaula. This city of 13,137 people (2010 census) is on the Alabama Georgia line,
along the Chattahoochee River. Lake Eufaula is known as the “Big Bass Capital of the World.” Their water
wastewater system consists of 58 remote assets: 36 lift stations, ten tanks, seven wells, three booster
stations, and two actuated valves.

The Vision: Fully integrate SCADA and asset management. Simple, yet difficult; lofty, yet achievable;

• Increase operational efficiencies

• Increase reaction time for operations, maintenance
• Provide a layer of oversight to decrease O&M costs
• Increase distribution and collections system reliability

The SCADA software must be fully-functional with integrated communication, historian, alarm notification,
synchronized redundancy, reporting, thin client connectivity, and the ability to connect to other software.

The asset management software must be able to perform work orders, inventory control, GIS connectivity,
mobile connections, bar coding, and a customer portal. In addition, it has to have the ability to connect to
ArcGIS and a vehicle tracking system.

The Results:

After the system integrator implemented the SCADA system, the asset management vendor connected
the software to the SCADA system through a standard OPC API. The SCADA system sends regular updates
to the CMMS as well as “pushes data” during key events or alarms. When SCADA calls for maintenance,
the CMMS searches for the correct inventory on the closest vehicle and dispatches the optimal personnel.
If parts are needed from the warehouse, it coordinates that, too. The SCADA maintains the logs of when
the system is back in full operation. Field personnel can link in remotely via tablets and/or telephones to
verify that everything is working correctly.

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 7

The resulting cost benefits include:

• Employee expense reductions:

o Improved work order completion rate
o Proactive maintenance regimen
• Inventory cost reductions
o Consolidated existing warehouse inventory
o Created barcode tracked inventory
o Up-to-date ordering based on actual inventory needs
• Reduced equipment costs
o Operation and Maintenance budget kept
• An ROI of 6.5 years (based on year 1 savings)

A TESTIMONY TO “ACCOMPLISHING THE POSSIBLE”

This application is a strong case study of what a municipality can achieve when they have clear goals, a
verifiable roadmap, and a committed implementation team. For the vendors, this is a strong validation of
the importance of implementing standards that provide for interconnectivity to other vendors and
software. For the industry, this is a testimony of what can happen when we commit to work together to
provide quality water/wastewater services, operational efficiencies, and system reliability.

As a challenge to everyone in the water wastewater industry, continue to:

• Seek case studies where the others have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
• Stay up-to-date with new technologies, solutions, and standards.
• Learn about advancements in other software offers (especially CMMS, LIMS, GIS).
• Test when and where appropriate. Find solutions. Share with colleagues when possible.

As ISA Water Wastewater Automation and Controls professionals, let’s do our part to meet the mission of
our industry: “to reliably and efficiently provide safe drinking water to the public, and remove, clean, and
restore the waste water through environmentally responsible methods.”

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com
 Hudson 8

List of Acronyms

• SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

• API – Application Program Interface
• TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol
• CPU – Central Processing Unit
• PLC – Programmable Logic Controller
• RTU – Remote Telemetry Unit or Remote Terminal Unit
• DNP – Distributed Network Protocol
• CMMS – Computerized Maintenance Management System
• LIMS – Laboratory Information Management System
• GIS - Geographic Information System
• OPC – Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control, or Open Platform Communication
• ODBC – Open Database Connectivity
• IoT – Internet of Things
• IIoT – Industrial Internet of Things
• HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol
• JSON – JavaScript Object Notation
• XML – Extensible Markup Language
• REST – Representative State Transfer
• OPC-UA – Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control - Unified Architecture
• MQTT – Message Queuing Telemetry Transport
• ROI – Return on Investment

2018 ISA Water / Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium

Aug 7-9, 2018 – Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland, USA –
www.isawwsymposium.com