Water and Wastewater Technology
Smart visualization
dat2WEB based on atvise® scada
For more than 30 years Anton Pickem has been active as a solutions provider in the range of automation and visualization with his company api-solution. The atvise® scada system serves as the technological platform of his portfolio. The center piece hereby is the "dat2WEB" application that api-solution programmed on this platform, which is – among other industrial segments – currently in use in the water and wastewater sector to ensure efficient supply for over 300 000 residents across 40 municipalities.
Equipped for All Applications
The company api-solution offers with dat2WEB, for example, suitable solutions in the water supply range for all customer segments: Small customers – typically municipalities with pumping stations – use a hosted SaaS version. Large customers rely on local installations, supplemented by cloud-based monitoring with watchdog functionality.
Due to its high flexibility the solution is now also being used in industrial energy technology. The combination of data logging, analysis tools, and clear, informative visualization is generating significant interest. These are self-contained systems that can be easily integrated into existing facilities.
Key Advantages of the atvise® scada Platform
The central starting point for the development of the dat2WEB application was atvise® pure web technology, which enables visualization in any standard browser – without any need for proprietary clients. At the same time atvise® relied on OPC UA at the core of its platform development from the very beginning. This results in significant advantages: complete hardware independence and easy integration, since modern PLC systems support OPC UA almost universally.
Application Development Without Limitations
The goal of the development was to visualize plants efficiently and with minimal errors – including alarms, reporting, maintenance functions, energy efficiency features, and a clearly structured, layer-based display. This is precisely where atvise® scada demonstrates its strengths: object orientation occurs not only horizontally but also vertically, thanks to OPC UA. This allows configurations and changes to be made primarily at the control level and then automatically transmitted to the SCADA level (bottom-up). Repetitive tasks are reduced to a minimum, which also significantly lowers the risk of errors.
Less effort, more flexibility
This functionality can also be used in reverse (top-down). When replacing hardware at the controller level, parameter updates can be loaded from atvise® scada onto the new controllers. As a result, expansions or modifications often require only PLC programming. For operators this means significantly reduced maintenance efforts.
Further the application program takes all relevant operational requirements into account. It is designed for both summer and winter operation and supports various operating modes, recipes, and setpoint strategies. The system also offers comprehensive support for troubleshooting: Objects can be unambiguously assigned to their respective controllers, allowing problems to be quickly pinpointed.
About Visualization and Usability
The trend and analysis functions are particularly comprehensive. Numerous visualizations are available as objects, ranging from bar charts to Sankey diagrams. The PLC information automatically determines the appropriate trend display – no additional configuration is required. Long-term archives are supported for up to 72 mos, and reporting is handled via flexible Excel reports that cover a wide range of requirements.
The visualization is based entirely on responsive design and automatically adapts content to end devices. Mouse-based user interfaces have been largely eliminated – touch interaction takes center stage. At the same time complexity has been deliberately reduced for users: anyone on site should be able to operate the system intuitively.
