The city of San Diego Water Department has installed a new state-of-the-art Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) telemetry controls system that serves as the main operating window for the city?s entire water distribution system.
Back in early 1990s, San Diego embarked upon a long-term strategic review of its controls system. Several years of dedication and planning paid off in 1998 when the city council authorized a $4.3 million construction contract to replace the existing operating system with radio-based SCADA telemetry system.
Prior to implementing the new system, the Water Department?s pump plants, storage tanks, control valves and equipment were monitored by early 1980s 16-bit technology. The old software written in Pascal ran on dual redundant minicomputers.
The teamwork of the city of San Diego, EMA Services Inc., and Transdyn Controls Inc. facilitated the SCADA project implementation. The SCADA system serves as the backbone for the city of San Diego Water Department?s Totally Integrated Data Enterprise System (TIDES).
?Our goal is to successfully implement integrated system solutions, and thus reduce long term costs associated with capturing, storing and maintaining data,? said Deborah Van Wanseele, Chief Deputy Director of the Water Department?s Management Services Division. Objectives for the system include reliability, flexibility for system growth, and reduced operating and capital costs.
?We intend to maximize our investment through more effective use of information,? Van Wanseele said. ?The city of San Diego Water Department has invested in an information systems integration philosophy whereby applications must transparently share data, make accurate data readily available and adapt to changing business requirements. The systems must integrate crucial information within a robust network and communications infrastructure.?
The system?s features provide data management and increased data accuracy, trending capabilities, and complete and timely report generation. The new installation standardized hardware and software, improved operator interfaces, enhanced communications and established the core for an integrated information system. The detailed data captured by SCADA system is valuable in understanding and modeling water system operations and in designing infrastructure improvements.
According to Linda Schmidt, Information Systems Integrator and Enterprise Data Manager with the city of San Diego Water Department, the system will reduce ?operating and capital costs by [allowing the department] to respond quickly to alarms and to system abnormalities without loss of service to the customer.?
San Diego?s water infrastructure is a very complex system. The department serves more than 1.2 million customers, with a service area encompassing 403 miles. In addition to three water treatment plants with a capacity of 300 mgd, San Diego maintains and operates more than 2,890 miles of water lines, 45 water pump plants, 90-plus pressure zones, and more than 200 million gallons of potable water storage capacity in 32 standpipes, elevated tanks, and concrete and steel reservoirs.
Larry Gardner, Water Department Director, knows that most water customers need and expect a very high level of quality and reliability.
?Our SCADA system allows virtually every facet of water distribution management and control to be accomplished. If conditions in the water system change, personnel can be immediately dispatched to correct the problem before it causes service problems for any of our customers,? Gardner said.
Utilizing new hardware, software and 900 megahertz radio transmissions, the Department now has the flexibility to control the water distribution system from remote sites or from the master control center at the Alvardo Water Treatment Plant.
Another project concurrently being developed with the SCADA system is the Building Enterprise Applications Consolidating Harmony program (BEACH). The components of BEACH will provide the capability to access and to integrate SCADA information with other applications such as: Water Modeling, Morning Reports, Sewer Water Infrastructure Management (SWIM), Laboratory Information Management (LIMS), and the System Planning Locator Application for Sewer and Hydrographics (SPLASH). These programs form a technology foundation that provides water data and business process management.
?The integration of the data from other applications is an essential component to realizing the full potential of information systems,? said Schmidt.
Some of the benefits of integrating the data components are expected to be:
- Improved preventative maintenance through integrating maintenance management, SWIM, and SCADA;
- Location of infrastructure problems through integration of SPLASH, SWIM and SCADA programs;
- Identification and location of water quality problems in connection with pump operation, valve status and distribution system samples by integrating geographic information systems (GIS), LIMS, and SCADA;
- Improved water pumping efficiency, valve positioning, pipeline size determination and calculating flow and pressure models for water distribution and transmission network by integrating modeling and SCADA; and
- Online assessment of flows, pressures and storage levels from measurement data collected at the water treatment plants, water sold, major facilities out of service and chemical information by integrating the Morning Reports with SCADA. Morning Report is a management application that provides daily status on pumps and treatment plants.
The city is conducting training for end users within the department, as well as specialized relational database systems management training for specialized personnel. The database system requires the part-time attention of five employees working the equivalent of one full time employee on the project. The city acquired a new relational data base server and a multitude of PLCs (programmable logic controllers) to implement the system. According to Schmidt, the old system is phasing out and the data transfer migration has gone fairly smoothly.
Among the systems being developed to integrate with the SCADA system database through the BEACH program is SWIMpen. It consists of a hand-held, Pentium-based pen computer application that uses GIS and GPS (Global Positioning Systems) to represent map and maintenance information about city land, infrastructure and pipe networks.
The application will provide field maintenance crews with increased capability to initiate, update and close work order information on a daily basis. Work order information will be downloaded nightly to each field crew?s pen-based computer to provide them with all the required information to complete the following day?s work.
The city expects that SWIMpen will save time and will allow for preventative maintenance of the sewer/water infrastructure by putting detailed information and maps about water and sewer infrastructure in the hands of city maintenance workers. SWIMpen stores 1.3 million data records and includes a GIS map and GPS component which allows work crews, dispatchers and supervisors to locate work sites quickly and easily.
Work crews can use the SWIMpen computers to edit map and facility information, and to update maintenance records. After every shift, the information is uploaded into a main computer database so that crews on the next shift have the most up-to-date information. Work crews will do all of their maintenance reports on the SWIMpen computer, so a great deal of time-consuming paperwork will be reduced.
The system is a move to a paperless maintenance management system that is expected to allow fewer errors or duplication, and to increase data accuracy and accessibility. The decrease in paperwork also will allow maintenance crews to focus on managing and maintaining the facilities rather than on office work.
Although SWIMpen is not fully up and running, the city expects to have SWIMdesk running by the middle of November. Currently the city is continuing to plan its implementation strategy by establishing milestones and target dates for this project.
In spite of its incomplete implementation, San Diego Data Processing Corporation (SDDPC), SWIMpen developer, has been selected as a finalist in the 1999 Innovations in American Government Awards Program. These prestigious awards are funded by the Ford foundation and jointly administered by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Council for Excellence in Government. As one of 25 finalists selected from 1,609 eligible nominations, SDDPC will receive a $20,000 grant and becomes eligible for an additional $80,000 grant.
?We are delighted to have been named a finalist for the Innovations in American Government Award,? Gardner said. ?With SWIMpen technology, San Diego?s water and sewer maintenance department can better serve the residents of this city.?
The San Diego Data Processing Corporation is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation established in 1979 by the city of San Diego. It provides information systems and telecommunications services for nearly every city agency, as well as nearly 40 other city, county, state and federal agencies.
According to SDDPC President and CEO Roger Talamantez, ?We are honored to be acknowledged for our technology efforts.? He added that SDDPC is looking forward to ?preparing communications materials, conducting public outreach activities and showcasing SWIMpen to other municipalities.?
The web site, www.sddpc.org has more information on SDDPC and SWIMpen.
