Synopsis
Adisa has been developed as a mobile and cloud application to support Water Service Providers (WSPs) to manage the operations in water and wastewater treatment plants. Adisa supports operations management and control by providing near-real time visibility of performance parameters. It allows operations to capture data reliably and securely for SANS241 and Blue and Green drop compliance.
The Problem
Due to water services operations occurring outside a formal office environment, delayed response to performance failures are usually the norm. The above is exacerbated when treatment plants – or depots are located in rural areas where often, only limited cellphone network connectivity is available. In these cases, operational performance monitoring and reporting is either paper-based or requires the physical transfer of data captured at remote sites for the eventual attention of management.
From an on-site analysis, the following issues were encountered:
- Delayed reporting cycles – taking up to a month for management to receive key operational performance reports, thus creating disadvantages in decision making abilities.
- Information being captured is not being used to proactively improve the performance of the treatment plant.
- Delays in responding to incidents, resulting in water safety – or wastewater risks not being reduced even where monitoring of performance is diligently done.
- No reliable reporting structure to compare the performance of process units, plants, schemes, or operators.
- Incorrect data capturing is not identified as it occurs.
- Lack of historic information or gaps in historic information limits the ability to manage the performance of specific process units.
- Dependence on cellular connectivity and signal strength.
Why is this an issue?
“As a consequence, rural municipalities often fail to provide information, or the information provided is limited since the management of water quality differs substantially between urban and rural environments. The rural WSAs under-perform even if the water quality itself is of an appropriate standard,” as reported in Water SA, in a study completed by Ulrike Rivett; Michael Champanis; and Toni Wilson-Jones.
Even more important and irrespective of whether urban – or rural water schemes are under consideration, much is often invested by water services operators in complying with national water quality standards and even international best practice in ensuring continuous safe water delivery through a ‘multi-barrier’ approach as well as in ensuring the protection of the environment and water resources – however, when the results of performance monitoring are delayed the benefits of these investments cannot be realised.
The solution
Adisa has been developed to overcome these challenges and to provide the following benefits to the water services operator:
- Receiving performance results in near-real time, thereby enabling faster response.
- Providing exception monitoring by flagging:
- when the operational monitoring programme is not adhered to.
- when the standard which has been set for particular control point has been exceeded.
- or even when the frequency of failures exceeds.
- Increasing the usefulness and effectiveness of the operations monitoring programme by providing:
- detailed reports of any parameter reported against any control point (for example to monitor the performance of a specific filter).
- reporting of operational monitoring results for any given time period and for any given control point to further support compliance reporting.
- a rich trail of performance results for process analysis – and audit purposes.
- Using mobile application technology which works on cellular connectivity only (GPRS) to provide a robust – and cost effective solution to water services operators.
The Adisa client operates on a tablet and is therefore extremely easy to use whilst offering complete mobility to the operator. The client can complete mobility to the operator. The client can be quickly set up to emulate the operational monitoring programme of any water – or wastewater scheme.
How it works
Adisa is a semi-connected application, consisting of front-end client and back-end server that runs on Windows, Android and iOS platforms for tablets and smart phones. Data can be captured and saved on the device, and is synchronised to the cloud; thereby ensuring 24/7 operations.
To enjoy the benefits of Adisa, or for a free assessment of your water managements systems and processes, call our team of experts today.