AWWA IMT61462

AWWA IMT61462 Simplifying Water Treatment Plant Reporting By Leveraging SCADA Data and a Customized Database Interface
Conference Proceeding by American Water Works Association, 04/01/2005

Spangenberg, Jon G.; Hall, Donald J.

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Dallas Water Utilities' East Side Water Treatment Plant has been undergoing a series of majorexpansions and improvements, including the implementation of a new and expandedsupervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, using Intellution software, whichhas improved the staff's ability to monitor and control plant processes. Recognizing that theSCADA system provided much of the information required for management and regulatoryreports, a project was undertaken to develop a reports module (RM) that would automate, orsemi-automate, a number of reports using data collected by the SCADA system.While a number of commercial SCADA reporting tools exist, it soon became apparent that veryfew, if any, of the targeted reports could be generated solely with the data contained in theSCADA system. Invariably, the reports involved a combination of SCADA data and non-SCADA data (i.e., data that is collected manually). Three alternatives were considered for the RM: extract SCADA data into Microsoft Excel and manually enternon-SCADA data;develop data entry screens within the SCADA system to inputnon-SCADA data, then use a commercial SCADA reporting tool togenerate reports; or,use a combination of Microsoft SQL Server and MicrosoftAccess to develop a custom solution for data entry, storage, andreporting. Alternative 1 was determined to be inflexible and insecure. Data stored in multiple Excelspreadsheets are not easy to query or analyze, and can be accidentally overwritten ormisplaced. Alternative 2 involved using a SCADA system to do what it is not really best suitedfor, manual data entry. And since the Intellution SCADA system in use at the East Side plantdoes not store historical data in a relational database, it was deemed somewhat inflexible.Alternative 3 was selected because it offered a good combination of flexibility and security.Microsoft SQL Server, a robust relational database, was selected for data storage, offeringmore security and flexibility than the first two alternatives. Microsoft Access was selected asthe integration platform. Its intrinsic form and report-building tools, ability to integrate datafrom external sources, and embedded Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programmingenvironment, made it well suited for this project. Includes figures.