AWWA IMT61462

Dallas Water Utilities' East Side Water Treatment Plant has been undergoing a series of major expansions and improvements, including the implementation of a new and expanded supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, using Intellution® software, which has improved the staff's ability to monitor and control plant processes. Recognizing that the SCADA system provided much of the information required for management and regulatory reports, a project was undertaken to develop a reports module (RM) that would automate, or semi-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 very few, if any, of the targeted reports could be generated solely with the data contained in the SCADA 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 enter non-SCADA data; develop data entry screens within the SCADA system to input non-SCADA data, then use a commercial SCADA reporting tool to generate reports; or, use a combination of Microsoft SQL Server® and Microsoft Access® to develop a custom solution for data entry, storage, and reporting. Alternative 1 was determined to be inflexible and insecure. Data stored in multiple Excel® spreadsheets are not easy to query or analyze, and can be accidentally overwritten or misplaced. Alternative 2 involved using a SCADA system to do what it is not really best suited for, manual data entry. And since the Intellution® SCADA system in use at the East Side plant does 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, offering more security and flexibility than the first two alternatives. Microsoft Access® was selected as the integration platform. Its intrinsic form and report-building tools, ability to integrate data from external sources, and embedded Visual Basic for Applications® (VBA) programming environment, made it well suited for this project. Includes figures.