Supervision of drinking water in Rouen

Press Release : L'eau, L'Industrie, Les Nuisances n° 316 - Solutions techniques
 

The City of Rouen, which includes 45 Burroughs, has been producing, treating, and distributing drinking water since 1 January 2005 to 400,000 inhabitants. It also manages sewerage for all systems collecting, transporting and treating used waters, as well as sludge disposal. Before that time, there were no less than 17 local or common structures supplying drinking water to the area’s 400,000 inhabitants: whether direct management (administration) for 40% volumes distributed or through public service delegations for the remaining 60%.

After the dissolution of these structures and once all contracts transferred, including existing public service delegation contracts, the water department of the City of Rouen harmonized the processes, including by substituting operating contracts to the PSDs, which resulting in having three operators managing drinking water for the local district: the public administration representing the area, Veolia Eau for several operation contracts, and the local water department.

This is a rather complex authority combination, and the water department, being the project owner for all the facilities in the area, had to acquire a supervision tool able to integrate all water management facilities implanted over its territory into a single application.

A single application integrating all the works

Willy Boiné is the head of the Operation and Production Department of the City of Rouen Water Department, staffed with over 120 agents. He explains: "When water management was transferred, the local authority could rely only on a centralized management system implemented in 1991, with the Industar supervision software. This application allowed us to transfer some vital information, but did not offer remote control over facilities. In addition, and considering its age, no intervener in the market was able to upgrade it". This was a drawback, considering we had to take over many processes and integrate all the facilities implanted in its new scope of operation.
"At first, for new facilities, we had to implement a stand-by system in parallel with the main application, but this solution was complicated to manage" specifies Willy Boiné. "The remote management equipment itself had become obsolete, urgent action was needed". As early as 2005, Willy Boiné and his team decided to acquire a new application able to meet the stakes they were facing. They decided to prepare the case internally: inventory of existing facilities, definition of needs, writing specifications, and issuing the call for tender file. "Everything we tried to describe, Willy Boiné explains, required a flexible, easy to use and upgradeable tool".

A flexible, easy-to-use and scalable tool

The call for tender was issued early 2006. It covered the full replacement of all remote management equipment, and the acquisition of a supervision system able to integrate three drinking water treatment plants, about twenty reservoirs and ten booster stations into a single application. The profile and features of the application required were described site by site and station by station in all their detail by Willy Boiné and his team: "We took great care to describe very precisely the result we wished to achieve in all its dimensions, without however imposing anything in terms of the tools to be used to achieve it".
However, two points were particularly specific. The first concerns focus on the tool’s upgradeability, as it must be able to cope with modifications in its scope: "We wish to anticipate the creation in the near future of an Urban Community in Rouen, as well as the term of several operating contracts in 2010" explains Willy Boiné. Another specific point was the attention given to the technical qualities of the file: "As a general rule, public markets consider pricing for 70% and technical issues for 30%. We managed to reverse this, marking technical issues for 60%". Out of the 11 companies replying to the call for tenders was Norealp, one of the industry IT subsidiaries of the Legris Industries Group, who was awarded the contract. Budget of the operation: 320,000 Euros.
As all other tenderers, Norealp recommended the Topkapi software platform by AREAL, a tool suited to water management professions.
 

Topkapi: a tool adapted to water management professions

Yves Vanhoye from Norealp followed the case in its technical phases, but also in its commercial ones. He explains: "Even though other products available in the market may have suited this application, everything supported Topkapi by Areal: from the current inventory which deserved maintaining to the many functionalities required by the operator which are native in this product, actually designed for 'water’ applications. The choice of another supervisor would have required many developments which are not necessary with Topkapi". 
 
The architecture chosen relies on 6 supervision stations connected together via the internal network of the Water Department.
Each server station has its own local application, and can act as a client station in respect of the other servers, allowing to control the entire facility according to its rights of use. 1 fixed client station and several floating license client stations allow viewing the application on mobile stations. As for existing items, i.e. the three Topkapi local servers already implanted in the drinking water treatment plants, they were maintained and integrated with the application. In terms of remote management, all equipment was replaced by Sofrel equipment: 26 S550 stations, 6 Cellbox and 2 Linebox. "These devices were imposed naturally for two reasons, explains Yves Vanhoye : they integrate perfectly with TOPKAPI's architecture and are the only ones which meet the operator’s needs natively, which are to have all local remote management stations able to view through a local display". Once the tools and equipment chosen, development was initiated.
A total 3800 hours studies were necessary to construct the entire application.

3,800 hours of development time

"In this type of project, the launch phase is the most important, explains Yves Vanhove. Once we knew we had been chosen for the market, we immediately decided to set up a technical meeting with the Areal engineers".

The meeting lasted several days, allowing to clear up the scene, by raising the difficulties one by one and designing an architecture fully compliant with the operator’s requirements. 14 months later, the system was operational. In addition to precise management of alarms and centralisation of all stand-by services on the centralised station, it ensures optimum operation of all sites managed by the water department.

Data acquisition is possible via SMS protocols: the local station sends an SMS to supervision containing the information required, which is decrypted and integrated to Topkapi. To avoid losing information, the data is time-stamped at the source. Every morning, all the information collected is consolidated in the form of summaries on the level of the centralized management station.

"Every day, between 5 and 7 in the morning, Topkapi updates all quantitative and qualitative data we have defined. An Excel file is then generated automatically, which is transmitted to the DDASS, specifies Willy Boiné. It is a considerable gain of time. It is also more reliable, considering any transcription error has now become impossible". Using a Topkapi station, an operator can create or modify the application without specific training, both in terms of graphs and synoptic diagrams or the "Summaries" function, native in Topkapi. This characteristic is highly appreciated by Willy Boiné’s teams, who were prompt in getting acquainted with the tool and appreciating it, both for its user-friendliness and its simplicity: "viewing, monitoring, changing a parameter, a setpoint, everything is performed easily in a few clicks" explains Willy Boiné.

The security aspect has not been neglected by Norealp’s team. For communication, all DSL links are backed up by RTC links, and sometimes GSM for data acquisition on local remote management stations. Today, the application is fully operational. "We control all sites of the administration, without exception" Willy Boiné is happy to say. "It also allows us to view summaries of certain facilities located beyond our scope, with which we have hydraulic interconnections. This information is vital, in terms of operation, it is a major 'plus'".

And yet, although just finalized, the application is already due for an upgrade. "We are currently working on a large-scale master plan defining our investments within the next 20 years, explains Willy Boiné. For historical reasons, the water management facilities were not always created based only on purely hydraulic nor geographical criteria, with adapted altimetry, but rather according to the outlines of the Burroughs controlling them. All this requires gradual correction to be optimized.These actions will start from next year, by implementing a network sectorizing process, which will be integrated to the application". It is a first reason justifying the bet on upgradeability.