Indianapolis Water Company System Upgrade

Utilities (NAICS 221)

The Challenge

The Water Company had developed a Central Control System (CCS) that consisted of a Master Distribution Control Room, connected to remote Tanks, Pumping Stations, Bleeder Valves, and District Pressure sites.  As the system grew over the years and decades, an assortment of control systems had been implemented.  Some of the sites contained older tone telemetry systems that were hard wired into the CCS PLC-5 before connecting into the SCADA system.  Other sites had been upgraded to Allen Bradley PLCs and communicated with CCS via 4-wire lease line.  As the tone equipment got older it proved to be very maintenance intensive, requiring frequent calibration of the frequency scanners in use.

The Solution

Frakes Engineering was hired to perform several projects in the design planning stages leading up to the upgrade.  These included a study to assess the feasibility of replacing the tone telemetry equipment, conducting Radio Feasibility studies to evaluate the possibility of utilizing radio to replace portions of the existing phone modem network.  Our work culminated in a System Replacement Study outlining the best mix of technologies the Water Company could use to bring the system up to date and provide the reliability required of such a critical operation serving over 1 million people.  Frakes Engineering was awarded a two year project to provide a turnkey solution based on our recommendations.  This new system would utilize Frame Relay Ethernet communications, Spread Spectrum radio tail-end networks as well as CDMA cellular communications to connect all of the sites which stretch over a 1600 Square Mile area.  To read the entire Project Spotlight, follow the link to the right.

This is just one of many solutions that Frakes Engineering has provided over the years.  If you have questions about this or other services that we provide, please feel free to contact us.

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