Utilities expand personnel capabilities with managed SCADA system - Case Study

As the water and wastewater industry faces a shrinking labor source, remote monitoring can fill the experience gap.

About one third of water and wastewater utility workers will retire by 2018, according to the 2008 Water Environment Federation report. More than 79 million baby boomers will reach retirement age during the next 10 years. According to a study authored by Jones and Henry Engineers, funding deficits, heightened federal security and mounting regulations under the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts are making operation with such limited resources difficult. One of those resources is training.

Many municipalities have addressed the skilled worker shortage by adopting field automation and mobile computing tools, such as wireless supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA). Wireless SCADA has proven highly effective at increasing worker productivity in the field by broadening access to operational information and diagnostics. This remote integration has helped utilities incorporate data and analysis into planning and maintenance.