Guest Commentary: How Water Utilities Can Embrace the Industrial Internet
One of the greatest challenges facing water and wastewater utilities today is maximizing the efficiency of a $1 billion annual spend on controls and IT. These utilities need to tackle their critical challenges while delivering the best return on investment to taxpayers or private sector investors. The emergence of the industrial Internet, an open global network that connects machines, people, and data, is an ideal technological solution to a complicated question. Taking the steps required to benefit from the industrial Internet could yield the impressive improvements that utilities have been looking for.
Step 1: Add a Modern Controls Infrastructure
A modern controls infrastructure helps minimize failure and increasingly frequent obsolescence risks. Today’s state-of-the-art controllers are Ethernet-based, featuring high availability redundancy, expandable open architectures, upgradeable CPUs and cloud-based capabilities to help you drive uptime, flexibility, and longevity. This first critical step brings together and links data from multiple standalone and disconnected platforms such as SCADA systems, Computer Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), financial systems, Automated Meter Reading (AMR), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A key element is an I/O (Input/Output) network with the right I/O connections that can maximize efficiency and data dissemination, connecting to a full range of I/O from simple discrete to safety and process I/O. High-performance computing at the controller is also essential for collection and dissemination of process and operational data. Configurations such as modular industrial PCs in a stacked configuration with PLCs provide a uniquely powerful control and computing solution capable of running HMI (Human-Machine Interface), historian, analytics, and other higher-level applications right at the equipment.
Step 2: Enable Real-Time Decision Support
A modern controls infrastructure can support advanced software capabilities, including a historian, for visibility into plant operations that enables real-time decision support. Both plant and business functions are tied together to provide a complete record of all processes, operations, and business functions. For example, the modern infrastructure can merge data from influent flow meters, laboratory analytical inputs, process basin sensors, blower motors, valves, and other equipment to optimize plant operations. Data inputs can then be presented in real-time visual form at the HMI to support the operators’ mechanical awareness and help make more educated business decisions. Without the enhanced infrastructure, the system cannot take advantage of the latest software for higher operational awareness of the water operations that can drive a new level of performance.
Step 3: Turn Data Into Actionable Information
A true understanding of water operations requires a deeper dive into the data with capabilities that provide process and operational analysis that can turn data into actionable information. Predictive analytics solutions can identify root causes and predict process anomalies before they happen. They can also monitor the health of your assets to maximize uptime. For example, advanced analytics software solutions can identify unknown correlations in process variables that can lead to sub-optimal performance, enabling you to understand where to take corrective action. Operators can also perform what-if analysis to find ways to best optimize plant processes. Advanced predictive analytics and diagnostics can be used to monitor all critical assets automatically and continuously, at all times. Intelligent software “learns” normal asset behavior and detects variances to provide early warnings of impending problems, with diagnoses of equipment and process failures and prioritizations based on severity.
Step 4: Capture Tribal Knowledge and Drive Consistency With Work Process Management
With many current experienced operators in water and wastewater utilities about to retire, it’s critical to mitigate this loss of institutional knowledge by capturing and digitizing work processes for critical consistency and predictability in your plant. Work process management software solutions effectively link high-performance control systems in real time to other business platforms such as CMMS and document management systems–connecting machines, data, and people to drive intelligence. This supports the creation of electronic standard operating procedures (eSOPs) that give operators step-by-step instructions to ensure the right actions for any situation. This reduces the variation in performance, cost and quality, so tasks are completed the right way every time. In addition, a work process management solution monitors information from the control system, comparing real-time conditions against defined alarm and process parameters. When an out-of-spec event takes place, an eSOP and work order can be sent to the appropriate operator–ensuring consistent and timely correction of the problem.
Step 5: Arm Mobile Operators With Real-Time Decision Support
Today’s increasingly mobile operators are now expecting technologies to deliver the information they need when they need it on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. They no longer need to be confined to the control room. Through the use of systems that offer real-time, remote decision support, operational data throughout the system can be securely transformed and presented as actionable knowledge anywhere, anytime. Alarms, processes, and other operational information needed by the operator are presented intelligently to users in the right context, by role, and location. This level of intelligence increases operator productivity, efficiency, consistency, and effectiveness through key performance indicators, eSOPs, and work orders delivered directly to them on smart mobile devices. Since information is finding the user instead of the user having to comb through data and prioritize, operators also can be proactive and not reactive, significantly improving performance.
The Ultimate Goal: Driving Optimization in a Connected World
More than ever, connectivity between machines, people, and data is imperative for intelligent water operations. It enables a holistic approach and allows operators to leverage critical data from each platform, which provides the basis for accurate real-time operational decisions, analysis, and strategic planning. The result: optimized performance across the utility and maximized return on investment.
It’s just the start of what’s possible in water with the industrial Internet.
