Maintworld Magazine 3/2021

PARTNER ARTICLE
LCMUA Use Case - Navigating
the Challenges of an Aging
Facility
Lake Cities Municipal Utility Authority
(http://lcmua.org) is located in Lake Dallas,
Texas and provides superior drinking
water, fire protection, and pressure to the
Shady Shores, Lake Dallas, and Hickory
Creek areas (together known as the Tri-
Cities). It also operates according to the
Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality (TCEQ) standards in potable
(drinking) water and sanitary sewer services.
LCMUA operates 21 lift stations, 3
elevated storage tanks, 3 ground storage
tanks, 10 pumps on the water side (with 3
altitude valves), and 46 sewer pumps on
the wastewater side.
The reality was that LCMUA had an
aging infrastructure system that needed
help from top to bottom. To better manage
and maintain their facility, upgrading
the system was one of the organization’s
biggest priorities. In addition, a large
portion of LCMUA’s budget at the time
was spent on call-outs, false alarms, and
failing equipment. For instance, the team
had to constantly send test alarms to
make sure the system was still functioning,
and it was common for an operator
to get a call once a week that alarms
were not working. Additionally, the preexisting
SCADA system was actually a
combination of three competitor products,
which ended up providing LCMUA
personnel with three different sets of operating
data. Besides requiring a unified
solution for their new HMI/SCADA, the
authority also required one that could
handle Distributed Network Protocol
(DNP3) communications and interface
with existing Servelec Technologies TBox
combined PLC/RTU hardware installed
at every lift station, pump station, and elevated
storage tank in their system.
KEEPING SMALLER UTILITY
PLANTS EFFICIENTLY OPERATING
IS A BALANCING ACT BETWEEN
THE AVAILABLE WORKFORCE
AND FINANCES.
And as with most facilities, LCMUA’s
personnel are typically busy everyday
working on projects such as preventative
maintenance or making repairs,
so they cannot monitor the operations
at all times. Because this facility works
with a lean workforce, they needed a
solution that could give them 24/7 operational
visibility and accommodate the
often-remote workforce. The software
solution also needed to be able to send
alerts notifying personnel to pull their
attention away from their daily duties
to address larger, more serious issues.
Consequently, to upgrade their system,
LCMUA sought solutions to replace the
older SCADA system, to reduce the related
costs, and to ultimately manage
the facility more efficiently with a lean
workforce. To tackle their challenges
and achieve their goals, LCMUA first
worked with system integrator
WHECO Controls of Fort Worth, Texas
(www.whecocontrols.com) and then
completed the project with system
integrator Impact Automation and
Controls of the Dallas/Fort Worth area
(www.impactaac.com).
The Solution: Using Technology
to LCMUA’s Advantage
WHECO Controls selected and deployed
the following ICONICS software and
installed its plant historian:
• GENESIS64 web-based real-time
HMI/SCADA suite with WebHMI
• MobileHMI data mobility software
suite
• AlarmWorX64 Multimedia OPC
alarm management software
• ReportWorX enterprise reporting,
charting, and analysis software
• Hyper Historian high-speed, reliable,
and robust plant data historian.
By using ICONICS solutions, LCMUA
saw immediate value.
LCMUA on-call monitoring.
3/2021 maintworld 11