Case Study - Swords Waste Water Treatment Plant
“When the SCADA system at the Swords Waste Water Treatment Plant recently fell due for upgrade the task was assigned to Tricon Automation Ltd. Over the subsequent installation and commissioning of a complete new system including hardware, operating system and the Wonderware Suite of SCADA software. I found the company’s flexibility and capacity to create, on request, “bell and whistles” unique to the Swords environment to be an invaluable asset. Needless to say, the company is now a member of the essential Maintenance Team that remains on call 24/7 to keep the at its optimum performance.”
Supervising Process Controller, Swords Waste Water Treatment Plant.
Critical Issue
Only one SCADA PC controlling the plant running old version of Wonderware Intouch 7.11 which is not supported on Windows XP which means you can’t buy a new PC and re-install the old Intouch software. This resulted in no backup being available when the PC eventually crashed. Your only two options are to either try rebuild a copy of your old PC running the old Windows NT or 2000 which is difficult because no drivers are available for new components or upgrade your Intouch to the latest 10.0 on a new windows XP PC.
Reason
Failing outdated hardware and software.
Capability (when, who, what)
SWWTP also required a way for the on call engineer to gain access to the system with real time updates from their laptop. Tricon quickly put in place a complete solution to address all the issues. We upgraded the SCADA systems and added extra features such as hot swap redundancy via a second SCADA PC and SQL Express based alarm logging. This means that if the main PC fails the second one takes over seamlessly and in a worst case scenario such as the plant is broken into and all PCs are stolen the on call engineer can still run the plant using a laptop. We also installed VPN and mobile 3G cards on site which gives the on call engineers and management access to the system with fast update times and also allows Tricon to support the system remotely.
We Provided
A turnkey solution which included all the new hardware, software and expertise to upgrade and improve the old setup. We also provided a new support contract to provide office hours support onsite using the secure VPN link from our office and also scheduled and emergency site visits.
Result
The on call system having proved so successful has been extended to a sister plant and has helped streamline the on call system as one engineer can now easily cover two plants. The plant has not suffered any downtime of the SCADA system since installation and the plant are continually making use of new features in the latest software to improve the original installation.