Monitoring and alarming without the cost of SCADA
The City of Kimberley had priced a SCADA system and could not justify it. flowworks gave them leak detection, process alarming and compliance reporting on a subscription instead.
Owner
City of Kimberley, British Columbia
Contact
Chris Mummery, Supervisor, Utilities
Engineer
Ryan Lesyshen, M.Sc., P.Eng., Kerr Wood Leidal
Driver
Water loss management, supported by the Columbia Basin Trust
The problem
Kimberley had already invested substantially in monitoring instrumentation across its water and wastewater systems, and needed a way to manage what those instruments produced. Data was being collected manually, and alarm notification ran through a third-party auto-dialer.
The City had investigated SCADA and found the cost impossible to justify at its scale. The decision to implement flowworks came through a water loss management planning project supported by the Columbia Basin Trust, after seeing the system at a local conference.
infinitii flowworks was installed at a fraction of what SCADA had been priced at, on a subscription the City could plan around monthly.
Trends checked first thing, every morning
The project needed leakage control flow monitoring, and it needed the City’s other facility processes monitored and alarmed. Both operations staff and management now use flowworks daily.
Leaks and problems at pressure reducing valve (PRV) stations are picked up far faster than before. Compliance monitoring data no longer has to be recorded by hand, and performance reporting takes considerably less of both operations and management time.
Kimberley intends to extend flowworks to all its water and wastewater sites, plus weather stations and road temperature sensors on the route to the Kimberley Alpine Resort.
- Leakage control flow monitoring
- Process monitoring and alarming across facilities
- PRV station problems identified far sooner
- Compliance data captured without manual recording
- Subscription cost in place of SCADA capital expenditure
“With FlowWorks, we know what’s actually going on in the field. Operations staff and management alike utilize FlowWorks on a daily basis. The first thing I do in the morning after checking my emails is to go to FlowWorks and track trends. We have been able to pick up on leaks and issues at PRV stations much, much faster than in the past.”
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