Time Sensitive SCADA Upgrade

As Service Authorities plan and budget for membrane replacement and plant upgrades, there is often not much attention paid to the control systems at these plants.

Plant control systems can face obsolescence in as little as 15 years. This timing often coincides with membrane module replacement. With the process changes that come along with new membranes, module upgrades are the opportune time to do a control system refresh.

When the time came for a large southwestern Virginia Service Authority to replace membranes due to high transmembrane pressures, they also wanted protect that investment by optimizing controls to prevent the fouling. So they challenged instruLogic to upgrade their control system during the membrane upgrade.

The wrinkle was that they had only a couple of days of water capacity without an operating plant.

Pulling in all of their available options, they were able to carve out a five-day window to do a complete control system removal and replacement. The SCADA upgrade included the Main PLC, Chemical PLC, Primary Computer, Hot Backup Computer, and Instrumentation.

InstruLogic spent time onsite coordinating with operators to plan the changeover, and with 90% of the programming completed off-site, the time was set to pull the plug on the old system.

On a sunny Tuesday morning, plant staff topped off the clearwell and the operation began. InstruLogic staff worked in teams to conduct full PLC & I/O replacement, new computer commissioning, and an instrumentation refresh. By the end of the SECOND DAY, less than 48 hours later, the plant was able to produce water. 

Their new system offers more features than the original. Including: Fully automated operations, operator interfaces in the control room and at the skid, remote system access from any internet connected device (smart phones included), customized/dynamic alarming, long term data historian and trending, customized report generation, and online redundancy.

Full system upgrades under high pressure time deadlines; happy customers satisfied with their new systems; that’s the way we do SCADA.