Clean water is critical to communities, and upgrading water treatment infrastructure has quickly become an area of expertise for Cybertech Automation. Working with a water treatment company with operations spread across the eastern United States, Cybertech Automation recently updated multiple legacy systems – increasing reliability and adding valuable new functionality using MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport).
A community’s existing water treatment systems were innovative for their time – processing lake water and logging Do-more PLC data to the internal memory of a controller that was only accessible to maintenance staff while on-site. However, limitations of this one-way communication began to emerge. Staff still needed to travel to sites to make configuration changes and change PLC setpoints. As well, if local communications went down, remote access and monitoring were compromised.
Cybertech Automation assisted the client with implementing MQTT-based systems that were far more robust and accessible. Bi-directional communications were established between PLCs and MQTT brokers (HiveMQ), which in turn relayed the water treatment data to a Microsoft Azure portal running SCADX (Cybertech Automation’s inhouse HMI/historian software). Maintenance staff could then remotely utilize a modern interface that provided better historical data, advanced reporting and improved redundancy/security.
Most importantly, changes made in the portal could be relayed back down to PLCs – allowing setpoints to be changed securely and remotely. This increased the responsiveness of maintenance staff immensely.
Consolidating operations in this portal also allows for future expansion, and the client now manages additional sites through this single interface. The portal can provide all manner of dashboards and will help maintenance staff visualize operations across larger geographical areas – letting them make ongoing strategic and safety improvements as they continue to explore the toolset. Data access has also been vastly improved with customized multi-site consolidated reports that are emailed at regular intervals.
Cybertech Automation proved to the client that implementing a lightweight MQTT solution would allow them to tie together existing legacy equipment – extending its life, functionality and long-term ROI. In this way, MQTT connects and modernizes equipment while saving costs and adding features.
Are you interested in upgrading older water treatment systems? Are you tired of limitations and management challenges while looking for an innovative partner? Contact Cybertech Automation today and get started on improvements that better serve your customers and improve your bottom line.