28 April 2014 • Water & Wastes Digest 

processsystems

on Water Production

By Marty Fallon

Software applications 

ease compliance, 

improve performance & 

promote conservation

I

n 2008, the New Zealand Ministry of Health 

issued revised drinking water standards for drinking water safety. To comply, water treatment facilities must track, save and provide monthly reports on 

water production, intake and discharge levels. At the 

same time, water providers need timely usage reports 

to make sure municipal customers can properly budget and forecast for city water needs. 

As one of the largest water producers in New 

Zealand, the Greater Wellington Regional Council 

(GWRC) understands these requirements well. 

The GWRC is responsible for supplying clean 

water to more than 10% of New Zealand’s population. Drawing water from lakes, rivers, wells and 

aquifers, the council is the wholesale water treatment provider for the cities of Lower Hutt, Porirua, 

Upper Hutt and Wellington. 

In order to comply with the changing regulations, the GWRC required a reporting solution that 

could provide accurate and timely reports generated from data automatically retrieved from its 

existing water treatment production and control 

system infrastructure. As a result, the GWRC not 

only was able to comply with government reporting 

requirements, but it also was able to leverage realtime production data to improve water treatment 

distribution and better inform internal and external 

stakeholders on water production and usage. 

Collecting Process Data

The GWRC employs the most advanced water 

treatment system in New Zealand with a SCADA 

system that runs four entirely automated water 

treatment plants, 15 pumping stations and more 

than 110 miles of pipeline. This system provides 

high-quality water for the southern portion of 

North Island.

However, collecting process data from disparate data sources proved challenging, especially 

because data needed to be stored in a reliable 

time-series archive for analysis and reports. Lily 

Wang, data analyst for GWRC, said it was timeconsuming to manually extract and organize data 

from different sources within the water treatment 

system for required governmental compliance 

reports. A faster, more accurate and automated 

reporting system was needed; one that could generate predetermined reports automatically and 

share them with authorized groups. The system 

also needed data validation capability as well as 

the ability to retain 10 years of data.

Different Solutions

 “After comparing several options, Rockwell 

Automation provided the most advanced and 

impressive capabilities, meeting or even exceeding all our data collection and reporting requirements,” Wang said.

GWRC implemented FactoryTalk Historian 

Site Edition (SE) and FactoryTalk VantagePoint 

Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence (EMI) software with its servers. The historian provided ready 

connectivity to GWRC plants’ automation-system controllers, capable of automatically pulling 

tags directly from different controllers via interface nodes. Tags then are stored in the FactoryTalk 

Historian server for the required 10-year retention 

period. Once stored, this information is available 

to be retrieved for trending comparisons and other 

analyzing and reporting purposes. 

Using the EMI software, the GWRC’s data management system is able to schedule and produce 11 

automatically generated reports to provide information on weekly and daily water consumption, 

discharge, intake, water quality and reservoir levels, as well as reports on lake storage volumes and 

total flow volume.

Analysts like Wang, water production/maintenance engineers and operators, business managers, marketing, and GWRC committee members 

charged with water supply management and 

regional strategy have access to this data from any 

location. Secure login via a Web browser brings 

each stakeholder to a single portal where they can 

access predetermined dashboards and charts. 

Facility operators have visibility of real-time 

consumption data for validation that usage levels 

are as expected. If demand peaks, more water can 

be supplied from other plants. Business managers are able to make comparisons on year-to-date 

usage vs. the previous year, ensure billing forecasts based on past usages are accurate or update 

expected revenues. 

“The FactoryTalk software suite’s level of integration and multi-compatible connectivity to 

existing hardware and software components in 

our plants and business system has given us the 

ability to pull reliable data from the widest variety 

of sources,” Wang said. “Combined with the processing power in FactoryTalk VantagePoint software and its accessible dashboards, trends, X-Y 

plots, and Microsoft Excel reports, we are able to 

transform all this rich data into information people can actually use for a diverse set of purposes.”

Faster, Better Data

The GWRC needed a reliable and effective 

data management solution. They developed a 

production intelligence strategy that empowers 

stakeholders with information they need to help 

The GWRC is responsible 

for supplying clean water 

to more than 10% of New 

Zealand’s population. 

A Clear View
make informed decisions. 

Data now are more quickly available and accurate. “Reports that used to 

take me the better part of a week to create and several more days to validate 

can now be produced in a few minutes or even seconds,” Wang said. This level 

of insight allows operations managers and business leaders to incorporate 

production metrics into business plans and to give feedback to system technicians based on hard data to more quickly resolve issues or improve operations. 

As a data analyst, Wang checks water intake and production data 

each day. “With real-time data immediately available, it’s as easy as 

doing a balance check,” she said. In the summer of 2012, during one daily 

validation, more water was taken in than what was fed into the drinking water system, signifying a leak. Wang was able to immediately contact the maintenance engineers responsible for the appropriate plant and 

direct them to the relevant pipeline to find and fix the leak. The problem 

was discovered and solved before the leak was noticed by production 

engineers or developed into a larger issue. “Our data system is so reliable 

now, that we’ve made it public,” Wang said. 

The GWRC now offers a live map of the current water supply rate, 

which is updated every 15 minutes. As residents are now able to see water 

use by city over a monthly, quarterly and annual basis, the GWRC hopes a 

public that is more informed about water production and usage will better 

conserve water, especially in times of peak demand. 

The GWRC has rolled out this same scalable solution to track systemwide chemical and power usage. “We have a firm grasp on our chemical 

and power inputs,” Wang said. “We can optimize the control system to get 

the best information to our business managers, so they get the best value 

from our budget.” WWD

Marty Fallon is vice president of business development for EZSoft. Fallon can be 

reached at 484.568.5040. 

For more information, write in 1109 on this issue’s reader service form on page 49.

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processsystems