Having implemented a Citect SCADA system back in 2002 to manage its water infrastructure, in 2014 The City of Shreveport sought to upgrade the system and remove decommissioned parts of plant.

Additionally, having used a number of suppliers since implementation, their system contained a number of different standards. This was a pain point for the Shreveport Electrical Instrumentation Technicians, as the system inconsistency slowed the time it took to rectify faults, so they also sought the development, implementation and documentation of a consistent set of standards for their system moving forward.

Project details

The City of Shreveport appointed Revere Control Systems, a leading system integrator based in Birmingham, Alabama to undertake the works. With expertise for such a complex project, and using the Australian Citect SCADA technology (in short supply in the US), Revere looked to Automation Alliance Group* partner SAGE Automation, to provide engineering support for the large project which included:

• Upgrading the obsolete CitectSCADA computer hardware, operating systems and software to the latest version
• Updating and standardising the CitectSCADA projects at:
  - A water treatment plant
  - A waste water collection system
  - Two waste water treatment plants
• Updating Citect Historians
• Updating customised reporting systems
• Over 200 field IO devices
• Over 600 grahics screens
• Over 30,000 data points 
• Approximately 60 user terminals and 12 servers

SAGE quickly mobilised a Senior System Engineer to Shreveport to join the project team, become fully acquainted with the project, the client and the system as well as interface with a support team of engineers back at SAGE in Australia.

 The project was undertaken in three phases;

1. Convert and Clean - reverting to the use of out of the box standard templates, and database cleansing including removal of unused code, configuration, alarms, trend tags, variable tags, graphics pages, and graphics library objects.

2. Standardise and Streamline – migrate, consolidate and develop standard colour conventions, tag naming, security, operator interfaces, and reporting standards across all sites.

3. Decommissioning of Existing System – once the new system was proven operationally capable, the old system was decommissioned.

The City of Shreveport now has a supportable software platform with standard interfaces across their sites. This enables high fluidity for city personnel between sites and easier site maintainability. With detailed documentation of the new standards, issues are able to be resolved faster and guide future work.

The Automation Alliance Group*

The Automation Alliance Group is a consortium of leading control systems integrators from around the globe, helping customers drive quality, consistency, and productivity. The alliance was born out of a vision to offer expertise in technical, geographic, and cultural matters across the globe through leading independent control system integration firms and offer a better way to provide multi-national firms with consistent integration services, regardless of geographic location. Customers of Automation Alliance Group members enjoy: Lower project risk, with their System Integrator accesssing global connections to navigate codes and regulations Collaborative delivery, with access to technical expertise and resources from across five continents Excellence, with expertise across all major industry groups and technology solutions