Is your SCADA System showing signs of neglect? Water and Wastewater Utilities depend on their Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Systems to operate, monitor, alarm and report on the critical processes that their municipality's residents take for granted. But are you taking your SCADA System for granted too?
It is important to keep your SCADA System maintained. As time goes by and your focus is on whatever the fire of the day may be, SCADA Systems continue to plug along in a critical role to keep the fresh water available and the spent water pumped away and treated. Without routine check-ins, several components of the SCADA System may start to reach critical stages in their life cycle that can lessen their reliability.
Ruekert & Mielke, Inc. (R/M) has SCADA experts that perform routine system check-ups to evaluate where your SCADA system components are in their life-cycle. Things that need to be evaluated are:
- Software versions, patches and security status.
- Hardware age and availability of spare parts.
- Operator reported nuisance alarms or control abnormalities.
- Report data fields not being automatically populated.
- System communications method, equipment age, and costs versus current industry best practices.
Now is a good time to identify the TLC your SCADA System is due for in order to incorporate your needs into your upcoming budgeting process. Please contact our SCADA experts to discuss the specifics of your system.
About the Author
Patrick T. Wohlers, P.E.
Team Leader / Senior Project Manager
Pat serves as the Team Leader for Ruekert & Mielke’s (R/M’s) electrical, SCADA and IT services group. His experience as a project engineer and project manager includes the planning, design, and implementation of electrical systems for municipal facilities, including: indoor and outdoor lighting systems, power distribution, control systems and process instrumentation. Additionally, he has extensive experience with design of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for computer based control and monitoring of utility facilities. Pat has been employed by R/M since 1990.
