Reviewer Details
Name: Kobus Wilken
Position/designation: Principal technician
Company: George Municipality - Directorate: Electrotechnical
Telephone: 044 874 3917
E-mail: [email protected]
Product details
Vendor: Adroit Technologies
Product name and version: Adroit
Telephone: 011 658 8100
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.adroit.co.za
General
Q: What industry (eg, mining, food and beverage, automotive etc) is the scada being applied in?
A: Electrical distribution. 66 kV and 11 kV monitoring and control.
Q: Describe the application briefly giving a description of any existing control systems, any previous scada system that was in place etc. If relevant describe the switchover from the previous system.
A: In 1996 George Municipality electrical started the switchover from Multiview to Adroit 3.51. And we have upgraded with every new version of Adroit since then. We use Adroit to monitor and control our distribution network on 66 kV as well as 11 kV. The larger substations are fully integrated into Adroit. No RTUs are used for these substations. The communications from the substations are on fibre and converted to Ethernet. The DNP 3.0 Ethernet protocol is used to transmit information for scada. The protection relays can be accessed from Adroit where settings can be reviewed or changed with the necessary passwords.
Q: Who did the system integration?
A: The system integration was done by myself, Kobus Wilken.
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the integration take?
A: The initial integration took in the region of 80 man-hours to get it up to par with the older system. It is however expanding every day as new equipment is added or upgraded.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg, remote-dial-up, e-mail, Internet access etc)?
A: Adroit is a proudly South African company, and technical support is either by e-mail, telephone or remote-dial-up. They also offer on-site support.
Q: What sort of licensing agreement is used on this particular system? Does one licence cover all modules, or can the user only buy those modules that he wishes to use?
A: Our system is licensed for one server and one node with 5000 scan tags. Licensing includes all protocols except a couple of OEM protocols, in our case DNP3.0.
System architecture
Q: How many tag points/I/O does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: The maximum tags one can use are system limited, which means, if the server can handle it, so can Adroit. Our system currently uses about 2500 scan tags and 5100 tags overall. We do however scan in 32 bit values from most outstations which drastically decreases the amount of scan tags used.
Q: What operating system is the scada running on (eg, Windows NT, Unix etc)?
A: Both the server and node are running on Windows XP professional.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drivers, the ability to upgrade, etc? Please elaborate.
A: It is very easy to 'build' an Adroit system. There are a huge number of drivers available free of charge, except of course for a couple of OEM drivers which carry a once off minimal charge. Updates come out all the time, and can be downloaded off the Adroit website and installed.
Q: Is the system integrated onto an intranet or the Internet? If so, does the configuration allow simple remote monitoring, or is it configured to allow full remote control? If not, what level of intranet/Internet control does the scada allow for future use?
A: Adroit is connected on a LAN, mainly for the purpose of communicating with outstations. We can also access Adroit using a PC anywhere from a remote location where full control is allowed, if you have the correct passwords of course.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: Adroit is capable of running a full redundant system. We however are in the process of upgrading to a hot standby redundancy system.
Graphics
Q: Describe the graphics development process - eg, did you use standard library images, or did you have to draw images from scratch?
A: There are a lot of images available with the package. We chose to customise our own graphics and images. Adroit is vector-based, so it is very easy to draw and add behaviours.
Q. How would you describe the library of graphic images?
A: There are a lot of images of pumps, motors and general industrial equipment, but less electrical equipment. This is understandable, because scada systems used by electrical distributors are far fewer in numbers than scada users in other industries. However, wizards can be used to help in the overall development of the project.
Q: Did you use any 'special' images (eg, embedded video clips, photographs, 3D images etc)?
A: No. But the functionality is available on Adroit.
Compatibility
Q: Did you run the scada in conjunction with any third-party application software? Describe.
A: No, but again the functionality is there to do so.
Q: Does the scada allow for the user to create scripts to perform specific tasks? Describe any specific scripts that were written for this project.
A: Yes, we wrote a few scripts. Although the SMS function is standard in Adroit, a script is used to verify message recipients. We are currently running 12 scripts.
Management reporting
Q: Is a trending and historical data reporting system included? Please elaborate.
A: Yes. We log almost all analog values and these can be viewed on a graph within Adroit or exported to an Excel spreadsheet. Data reporting to databases is also a standard function. Example scripts are available to write to Excel spreadsheets.
Q: Is a management reporting system included in the package?
A: No, but OPUS, Adroit's report writing and analysis tool is designed for this sort of application.
Q: Is the system integrated into a manufacturing execution system?
A: No, we use our system for monitoring and control.
Q: Is the scada system integrated into a management reporting or control system (eg, SAP, Baan)?
A: No, but it can be done if required.
Q: Was any additional software development needed? Please elaborate.
A: No, Adroit software is a fully comprehensive, off the shelf solution.
Conclusion
Q: What impressed you the most about the system?
A: It is a truly open automation system and has proven itself over the past 10 years.
Q: What was the predominant feature (or features) that made you decide to employ this scada, rather than another (ie, ease of use, support from the vendor, upgrade path, redundancy features etc)?
A: The most important aspect was that Adroit is a local company with support just a phone call away. It is also very easy to use and implement. With the new VIZNET smart client options, Adroit will be even better.
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