REMOTE CONTINUOUS OPERATOR MONITORING OF PLANT PROCESS EQUIPMENT

A state of the art Distributed Control System (DCS) is being installed at a large Wastewater Treatment facility, which serves over 2 million customers in a 725 square mile area. Operators utilize Human Machine Interface (HMI) displays in the Central Control Room (CCR), as well as the Area Control Centers (ACC), to monitor the status of the treatment process and equipment. However, certain types of equipment require periodic visual monitoring by operation personnel. These operator walk downs or “rounds” require the operator to leave the CCR/ACC. During this time, neither alarms nor events can be monitored by this operator. This requires either an additional operator for monitoring or brief periods of time when the process is not closely monitored by an operator. These options carry financial or environmental consequences.