SCADA revamp with CIMPLICITY reduces waste and increases efficiency of entire archipelago’s water service

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Customer Information

Introduction

Products

Proficy Historian for Cloud, CIMPLICITY, Webspace

Overview

Infrastructure management always involves special needs, commitments, and measures. A challenge that becomes even more important as the infrastructure is strategic and geographically extended. All these complexities are perfectly illustrated by the revamping of Malta Aqueduct conducted by ServiTecno. A project of particular significance, not only because it involves an infrastructure of national importance, but also because of the expertise required and the complexity of the project.

Products:
  • CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA
  • Proficy Historian
  • IGS
  • Proficy Webspace

Introduction to Malta Aqueduct

The management of a national aqueduct requires special attention because it introduces levels of complexity, not necessarily technological, that are rarely found in the management of non-strategic infrastructures. To better clarify the scenario, let us take a look at some numbers regarding extension and technical specifications.

First and foremost, the aqueduct of Malta serves more than 550,000 people, either in terms of distribution of drinking water and wastewater collection, distributed between the Island of Malta and the Island of Gozo, located 4 km away. The overall supply is about 98 thousand cubic metres for Malta and 10 thousand cubic metres for Gozo. Drinking water comes mainly from underground extraction stations. Through the main control room, it is necessary to monitor the entire infrastructure and, above all, ensure effective and timely support in the event of failures or malfunctions.
  1. The challenge of numbers in station management

    Overall, the infrastructure currently has more than 500 stations, between extraction, sorting, collection, and management, divided into two sub-infrastructures: one for the distribution system and one for the wastewater collection. A logical and functional subdivision: in fact, there are two parallel systems also in terms of implementation of digital controls. The one related to the distribution, previously implemented, was the object of revamping by ServiTecno.
  2. Managing the operational complexity

    In managing large projects, especially when they have many years of historicity, the implementation often takes place on a contingency basis, particularly when the infrastructure evolves over time. In the case of Malta Aqueduct, the subsequent implementations of new stations had led to an unstructured situation, in which the user control interface used 110 different objects, each one with its own navigation and control logic.

    Basically, each station was managed and controlled through an almost proprietary administration page, which made operations (both daily and extraordinary ones) and staff turnover complex. In fact, operators had to know the HMI system used before being able to gain operational autonomy.

    A situation that also resulted from the heterogeneity of the system: Malta Aqueduct, as a public company, relies on tenders for supplies which, for example, makes it operationally impossible to adopt a specific brand or model of sensors and monitoring tools, given that Malta tendering mechanism, which is very similar to the Italian one, rewards the best offer on the market for each call.
  3. The past ecosystem of Malta Aqueduct

    Malta Aqueduct already had a monitoring and management infrastructure. The previous implementations were already using GE Vernova products. This choice was based on the guarantees and reliability offered by the GE Vernova products needed for government infrastructure, as David Pace, Operations Manager of the Water Services Corporation (WSC), and Shaun Grima, IT System Architect (both representatives of the aqueduct) explain.

    It was precisely GE Vernova’s expertise that was behind the contact between Malta Aqueduct and ServiTecno, referred by the vendor itself for its Customer Care service on GE Vernova products. Since the first interaction, there has been an increasingly close collaboration between the companies, which culminated in the launch of this revamping project.

Challenges in a revamping project

Malta Aqueduct is an infrastructure that presents numerous specificities that make it a case study of great interest, especially for its territorial extension and for the heterogeneity of the endpoints present within the different stations, particularly in terms of type, quantity and functionality of the sensors used. Temperature, pressure, chlorine concentration and various level measurements represent just some examples.

Furthermore, ServiTecno had to consider some aspects related to field operations.
  1. Taking over a previous development

    While operating mainly at user experience level, the challenge of taking over a project is not to be underestimated. In fact, before the operation, it is necessary to fully understand the logic, the solutions used, the criticalities and the strengths of the resources in the field. ServiTecno has put in place the necessary resources and professionalism to carry out an extremely accurate assessment of the plant, before elaborating its implementation idea.
  2. Complex logistics

    The revamping of the SCADA system mainly concerned the Operations Centre, but that doesn’t mean that there were no challenges related to logistics. A plant with such an extension requires specific updates and precautions, especially considering that, in addition to the physical distance between stations, accessibility to many of them is limited or impervious. In these cases, making a blocking error, or enabling operators to do so, means introducing significant delays and considerable cost items.
  3. Need to rationalise the user experience

    The main decision driver by Malta Aqueduct in revamping its management system was the need to rationalise user experience, making it as uniform as possible, and reducing learning time for new hires. Moreover, it was necessary to build resilient implementation logics, which allowed the creation of new power plants according to a uniform and more efficient scheme.
  4. ServiTecno’s project

    Given the complexity of the project and the specific needs, the choice was to adopt a lean approach: modernize and standardize control systems, while retaining as much as possible of the user experience that the staff know and manage daily. As you might guess, operations were concentrated mainly on HMI level, leaving the PLC part as unaltered as possible and interfacing with sensors and readings. At this level, ServiTecno proposed a minimally invasive normalization of data and communication protocols using the unified OPC protocol, necessary to standardize the readings and to make the system future proof in view of the opening of any new stations.

    Alignment was another purpose of the intervention: that is, a technological upgrade of the systems, which allowed the system to gain resilience to new technologies and extend their life cycle as well. In fact, even these operations must be carried out with awareness to eliminate the risk of unforeseen events, especially when dealing with strategic resources.
ServiTecno
HOMEPAGE: The comparison between the previous “home” screen and the current one. The map view allows to identify geographically all the stations and to immediately visualize their condition.

ServiTecno’s Solution

After the assessment and design phases, it was finally time for field implementation, which was divided into several stages of processing.
  1. Revamping and rationalizing the interface

    The main part of the first phase of this project was undoubtedly the redesign of the interface, where the main challenge was to design a navigation and management system that was simultaneously usable and not too distant from the logic already known to operators. The choice was to unify as much as possible the logic of representation of the different elements of each station, build a uniform system of controls, including navigation, and create a side panel containing some contextual information and a more agile transition between different areas of the interface. This operation, apparently taken for granted, in the previous version was entrusted to a series of board-specific solutions.
  2. Creation of a unique system for stations representation

    The second major concern was the standardization of the pages representing each station. In fact, in the previous version of the system, the control software involved 110 different types of objects. The number has been reduced to 15 through a process of analysis and rationalization, improving the simplicity, immediacy and learning curve of the system.

    Moreover, ServiTecno developed an automation for the creation of new stations. This allows both to reduce the insertion time, and to check that the new navigation pages of the system are made according to the standard designed and shared with the customer. In other words, the usage of a semi-automatic script for the creation of control pages of new stations will prevent the creation of new non-standard pages in the future.
  3. Standardization of communication

    The creation of a unified protocol for communication was a less evident aspect of this project, but one of absolute importance. We mentioned how the system is equipped with many types of sensors, supplied by different brands. Thanks to GE Vernova unique features, it was possible to aggregate individual communication protocols through a layer of transformation. One of GE Vernova’s main prerogatives is, in fact, the ability to communicate with virtually every protocol available on the market. In this way, SCADA can communicate with any device on the ground, allowing it to overcome even the constraints of manufacturers who aim to propose their own software solution.
  4. New alarm management

    The final piece of the project was the implementation of an intelligent alarm system, a solution that allowed for more timely and effective controls by staff, distinguishing truly critical situations from background noise and implementing a notification system to provide a better quality of service.
serviTecno alarm
ALARM: From a single confusing list to filtered pages by type alarm and operator with the possibility of inserting comments, documentation, etc.

Results

The collaborative path established has resulted in an efficient solution that has optimized waste and enabled efficiency.
  • Significant improvement in system efficiency and responsiveness
  • Reduced operational delays and unplanned downtime
  • Enhanced water quality control through real-time data monitoring
  • Streamlined interaction for operators, resulting in quicker issue resolution
  • An estimated 20-30% improvement in operational efficiency
Here is what David Pace and Shaun Grima, Operations Manager and IT System Architect at the Malta Aqueduct, have to say about their experience.
  1. Can you tell us about the project in its entirety?

    This project consists of a new user interface for the current SCADA systems of WSC Malta. The user interface shows a graphical representation of the Maltese islands where the stations on high alert are shown. Over 500 external stations have been tracked geographically on the map. If one of the configured alarms is triggered, a pin on their location is displayed in red. The system also distinguishes the recognized alarms from those that just went off, changing the pin colour to green. By clicking on the geo-localization of alarm, a summary of the most important parameters of the station is displayed.
  2. Where does the choice of revamping of the existing solution come from?

    The existing user interface was designed over 5 years ago and besides wanting to update it, there were new ideas that the management wanted to implement. Furthermore, this update made the user interface faster and easier to monitor for the control room. The new system would also include smart alarms.
  3. We know that GE Vernova is a historic choice for you: what are the main reasons for this long-term partnership?

    GE Vernova products have always met our needs. In addition, they can connect to components of different brands, and this is an advantage, given the nature of our company.
  4. What expectations did you have from the partnership with ServiTecno?

    ServiTecno has always been very professional and willing to collaborate with us. Having discussed our needs before agreeing on the objectives of this project, we were confident that it was possible to achieve the results we had set ourselves.

"GE Vernova’s SCADA solutions offered a reliable, scalable, and technologically advanced platform suited for critical infrastructure management. Their tools allowed WSC to gain real-time insights, reduce downtime, and improve operational efficiency. Furthermore, GE Vernova, through its partner ServiTecno, provided ongoing technical assistance, regular system updates, and maintenance, ensuring long-term performance and alignment with WSC’s strategic goals."

Shaun Grima

IT System Architect – Malta Aqueduct

serviTecno simplified navigation
SIMPLIFIED NAVIGATION: To go down in detail of the single station simply click on the map. Then it is possible to further deepen by using the specific screen of each substation.
serviTecno substations
SUBSTATIONS: Small changes have been made to the graphics (so as not to disturb excessively the operators), such as the insertion of KPI and the navigation bar in the right hand of the interface.

The future of the collaboration

Enabling Malta Aqueduct to achieve efficiency and reduce waste through the revamping of the existing SCADA system has been a fascinating and challenging project in the context of a solid collaboration. A collaboration that will proceed immediately with the second phase, before consolidating along lines of action that are related to GE Vernova product management.

ServiTecno will continue to provide assistance on the installed GE Vernova systems: in fact, this was the origin of the working relationship that led to the involvement of the company in the project. ServiTecno, always in the perspective of ordinary management, also takes care of the technical alignment of systems, including the periodic updating of products and their routine maintenance.

Achieving efficiency through a pragmatic approach

The revamping of Malta Aqueduct’s SCADA system teaches how, in most cases, approaching a complex project means to go back to the basics and take advantage of the experience gained over the years. A pragmatic approach, indeed, in which the success comes mainly from the consistency of the method applied, from the ability to gather information and to plan the processes. This was also made possible by ServiTecno’s knowledge of GE Vernova systems and by the willingness to collaborate with Malta Aqueduct staff, who immediately shared the objectives and expectations regarding this implementation.

About Servitecno

ServiTecno specializes in the supply of software and hardware for supervisory systems and management, providing 360° of process data within industrial and utility to support Digital Transformation.