Several thousand square kilometres of coverage, a number of storage points (tanks, reservoirs, lakes and lagoons), multiple treatment sites, pump stations, waste streams and sewers; and finally a multitude of performance parameters (including flows, pressures, energy consumption, operating times, conductivity, pH, turbidity)! That is what the operations manager or IT manager of a typical water utility must contend with in terms of the volume of data that has to be managed and acted upon.
Scada and telemetry systems help a utility in remote monitoring of its operations. But how does one go about drawing out actionable insight from the large streams of data coming in from remote terminal units (RTUs), controllers and other instrumentation?
You need a plant-wide reporting tool that collects, records and reports data from multiple, disparate systems.
CitectSCADA Reports v4 allows you to produce reports using a built-in Historian and does so in the familiar, open Microsoft user interface which only an embedded MS SQL server makes possible.
So, what would such a reporting tool deliver?
The value of a reporting tool clearly depends on what you want to do with the data it reports on.
Ask the operations manager of a water or wastewater utility and he will tell you that there is value in a solution that (a) maintains long-term data records, (b) that guarantees security of the data, and (c) that helps to meet regulatory reporting requirements.
Long-term data records? Not difficult to maintain, you would think. Simply archive the information. But the problem with archiving is that it typically locks that information away from analysis. Archiving retains long-term data, but does not let you do much with that data. CitectSCADA Reports, on the other hand, compresses the data but still keeps it online; so you do not lose the ability to analyse.
And if - for your long-term data needs - you decided to use the archivable trend files that came with your Scada system, you would still have to contend with custom coding to draw out what exactly was going to be useful to you. With CitectSCADA Reports, you simply tick a box or move it to Historian and it does the rest for you.
Security of data records? Yes, with water and wastewater utilities being increasingly classified as 'critical infrastructure' from a national security standpoint, security of data records assumes greater significance than ever before. With CitectSCADA Reports, your utility's data is directly stored into Microsoft SQL Server tables. So that means your data is secure with one of the most trusted names in database management.
Meeting regulatory reporting requirements? Not new you say. But because CitectSCADA Reports uses Microsoft SQL Server, your utility team will now be dealing with a familiar set of industry-standard tools - Microsoft Reporting Services - that allows you to share information using proven and well understood applications. You can even send out reports in PDF format or e-mail them to the relevant stakeholders. And with the granularity of information that Historian provides, you can drill beyond summaries to identify deviations in critical limits in disinfection, calibration records, manual verification records and other parameters that every water utility considers part of their safety planning and monitoring process.
Total cost of ownership: For water and wastewater utilities, this combination of benefits makes CitectSCADA Reports a compelling tool toward achieving greater leverage of operational data. But what it also does is lower the total cost of ownership through its use of open technology that calls for little or no training and minimal installation time and cost. And through its simplified interface that allows more people in the organisation to access information relevant to them on plant operations, it also brings in further savings by reducing the reporting demands on overburdened IT staff.
Bridging the divide: Ultimately, expensive proprietary reporting tools are installed in attempts to bridge the divide between the senior management and plant operations. CitectSCADA Reports brings down the complexity and cost of this effort through its simple, easy-to-use interface and its active data transfers that can push data from the control systems up to the business systems. That way process evaluation and decision-making by senior management is fed with the right levels of plant detail and best of all; in a surprisingly accessible and business-focused form.
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