Feature SCADA & Data Acquisition Less data, more information


Regulators are driving the water industry to adopt Whole Life Asset Management. This has created a need, not for more data but for better information, so the


recent ‘Driving Innovations in the Water Industry Conference’ hosted by Mitsubishi Electric looked at how some companies are embracing the new regime


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ou would only have to go back a few decades to find a dearth of automation in the water industry. However, as technology has pro- gressed so has the adoption of automa- tion technology in the sector. Although many works and pumping stations had installed SCADA (supervi- sory control and data acquisition) sys- tems by the mid-1990s, engineers realised that there was still a lot of work to do and spent the rest of the decade networking the various SCADA systems together. Huge amounts of data were being collected and transmitted to the head office computer systems but for some reason, this did not create the step change in efficiency that many expected.


After some head scratching It was eventually realised that head office was not actually using much of this extra data. Further analysis divided the data into two - that which was not particularly relevant to head office and that which while useful, was not in a format that head office would find easily understandable. So now, approaching the terrible teens of the new millennium, a new concept is emerging. The idea is to let the users develop their own sub-sys- tems and thus create an architecture that builds capability rather than warehouses data.


Mark Narbrough of systems special- ist Gromtimj UK explained, “We ask people what they do at work and what data would help them make decisions. Often the data is actually available on their system but it needs re-packaging into a format with which they are com- fortable. Once they are using the data we can look at options for improving what they do, expanding their role and communicating better with a wide range of colleagues.”


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Above: the recent ‘Driving Innovations in the Water Industry


Conference’ hosted by Mitsubishi Electric offered some valuable insight to


companies within the industry


The industry regulators are now look- ing at this issue very seriously, and it is worth noting that in the last price review they had the power and willing- ness to levy penalties of literally hun- dreds of millions of pounds on water companies that could not support investment plans with data packaged in the formats they want. They are also pushing the industry towards a Whole Life Asset Management philosophy, or Totex - the combining of asset and capi- tal expenditure accounting.


Joined-up thinking


Narbrough went on to explain that the water industry is in fact ahead of many other sectors in the way it joins up its management functions, and that it should not feel that it is lagging behind other industries - it is actually blazing a trail that others will later follow. He also explained that when design- ing a system, each user must be asked what data they need, how often they need updates, how they process the information and what actions they initi- ate. They also need to explain their overall rationale - how their activities fit into the bigger company wide system. “We only collect data that is going to be converted into usable information, and we tend to report by exception rather than event - which is often the difference between data and informa- tion,” said Narbrough.


Hardware With today’s plug and go technology, high levels of systems integration is achievable where before they would have appeared mere science fiction, as Jeremy Shinton of Mitsubishi Electric explained at the recent water industry conference.


“Manufacturing Enterprise Systems connect real time technical data into


high level business systems and they are simple to implement using state of the art modular PLCs. These have a central processor unit plus a rack onto which you simply mount speciality modules, to create a bespoke con- troller for each situation.”


At a remote pumping station, for example, you might want to monitor the temperature of three different bearings, a motor’s load and its run time, the flow rate and turbidity. Retrieving this data can be achieved by simply adding the appropriate data logging hardware and one or more communications options. Standard off the shelf analytical software tools or dedicated solutions from Mitsubishi, can then convert the raw data into reports, each formatted appropriately for the intended user. For instance, a maintenance engineer would look at current temperatures and total run times, a process engineer would focus on flow rates and volume, while an environmental scientist would check the turbidity.


Once the data is transferred to head office, it is integrated with data from other pumping stations to produce management level reports.


Head office would also want the data to update its business systems. For this purpose Mitsubishi's C- Connector solution is specifically designed to seamlessly connect process systems with enterprise sys- tems. It is a PLC module that can deliver real time data directly from a remote station to the head office busi- ness systems, such as SAP. Process data can thus be easily monitored and analysed, helping to increase plant visibility and boost productivity.


Mitsubishi Electric www.mitsubishielectric.co.uk T: 01707 276 100


Enter 214 FEBRUARY 2013 Automation


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