Water and wastewater systems have a SCADA system at their core.
SCADA stands for "Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition" and, as a software system, consists of a number of elements:
- Graphical Interface - also known as the Human Machine Interface HMI or visualization systems
- Alarming - aggregates all the alarms in one place so individual alarms can be acknowledged and acted upon
- Trending - graphing of process values
- Alarm Notification - for systems not manned 24/7 (which is the majority of water SCADA systems in the US)
- Reporting - daily, weekly, monthly and ad-hoc collections of useful data
Water SCADA and Wastewater SCADA were commonly separate systems a few years ago, but most new developments taking place integrate them, as well as integrating the network of Pump Stations with the treatment plants.
One of the reasons is that SCADA software has become more powerful and mature. The other reason is user-driven, where utility managers require better data quality and formatting for use in planning, reporting and compliance management.
Find out more about the MultiSmart Pump Station Manager and how it integrates into SCADA systems.
