SCADA with 3D Imaging for Water Treatment Plant

The Anderson Regional Joint Water System (ARJWS) is based in Anderson, South Carolina. It provides wholesale drinking water for 14 utilities that deliver water directly to consumers. The partnership of rural and municipal water districts uses the latest technology to produce award-winning water. Capacity is 48 million gallons a day, and water is sourced from the Lake Hartwell Reservoir.

When ARJWS wanted to replace its old supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, it worked with system integrator MR Systems. MR is based in Norcross, Georgia, and also has locations in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. For ARJWS, MR Systems put in Ignition by Inductive Automation®. Ignition is an industrial application platform with tools for building solutions in SCADA, human-machine interface (HMI), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

ARJWS is s forward-thinking operation, and it really wanted to modernize its SCADA system. “We wanted to have something that was progressive, that would take us into the future with schematics and data entry and logging in real time. That was a very important part for us,” said Bryan Bates, operations manager at ARJWS.

MR provided eye-catching 3D graphics and animation. ARJWS loved the new look, and the speed at which it was delivered. “You submit ideas to MR, and within days you’re getting graphics, layouts, and schematics of how it can be represented,” said Bates. “That absolutely blew my mind. MR is tip of the spear in the industry, as far as we’re concerned.”

Realistic Visuals

Erik Doepke, senior applications engineer and visualization technical lead at MR Systems, led the way on the visuals. “I’ve been doing 3D graphics and animation for over 30 years,” he said. “With fully 3D-rendered photorealistic graphics, as well as slick process views in 3D, operators have a better feel for the plant and what’s going on in the process.”

It was the first time MR combined its 3D work with Ignition, and it went very smoothly. “There was an unknown as to whether we could make Ignition do exactly what we were accustomed to,” said Doepke. “But it became quickly apparent that we were going to be able to throw anything at it, and it would work just fine.”

The new system gives ARJWS numerous improvements over the old one. The utility now has a more robust, reliable, and flexible control system. It also has alarm notification capability, easier access to historical data, extensive redundancy, fewer proprietary issues, and the flexibility of unlimited clients. “And the cost was significantly lower than it would have been with another HMI package,” said Doepke. “Also, the system has been much more stable than the older system. There is little to no maintenance required by the plant staff. It just works, every time, all the time.”