A solution story from eWon
American Water Technology is a turnkey manufacturer of water treatment facilities located in Redding, California. Serving the markets for everything from small water districts to industrial process water, they provide one-of-a-kind engineered solutions to meet the specific needs of their varied client base. Designed to minimize the capital expense of the large and complex systems used to control this vital resource, their solutions produce maximum ROI.
Operating with a team which includes professionally certified engineers, software developers, licensed system operators, fabricators and conceptual designers – they are responsible for the efforts required to evaluate, design, test, and maintain the water systems they produce.
eWON and the Talk2M solution
American Water Technology is an early adopter of the value created through eWON and the Talk2M solution. Right from the start, they discovered that the eWON solution established a 20% reduction in hardware costs associated with remote connectivity. They quickly learned that use of the simplified connection created an inherent ability to reduce new project IT lead times by 40-50%. American Water Technology learned this point to be a competitive edge in the tough water treatment market.
Direct secure remote connection
Depending on the geography distribution of their clients, American Water Technology uses multiple eWON products. According to Darian Slywka of American Water Technology: “Some of our projects are located in remote isolated areas. In these areas, we might take advantage of a 3G cellular modem build in the eWON to create a direct secure remote connection to our interactive logic controllers and water systems.” However, eWON is best known for devices capable of smoothing out the issues associated with using the customer’s LAN infrastructure.
“As you might imagine, there are significant issues with security relating to utility infrastructure. Opening ports in a firewall creates concerns for both the customer and for our own systems,” continues Mr. Slywka.
Easy and secure VPN remote access
The eWON solution, along with companion service Talk2M, allows American Water Technology to assign engineers and programmers based on workload, project dynamics and business requirements. They monitor not only equipment access but log the time they spend working remotely. eWON’s easy and secure VPN remote access allows engineers to monitor, debug and later troubleshoot literally any device with an Ethernet connection – things like ILC’s, Drives, instrumentation and other devices can be connected as easily as if they were within arm’s reach.
Easy to configure
With the built-in PLC protocols for all major PLC vendors (including Allen Bradley, Siemens, and Modbus) it is very easy to configure the eWON unit to monitor key parameters such as: PH-value, PSI, water quality and others. The system can automatically send alarms to customer engineers or developers back at the American Water Technology facility. As a matter of fact, “our” staff can remotely troubleshoot and diagnose a water system from their laptop anywhere they have an internet connection.
American Water Technology’s customers are often affected by governmental regulations which require data logging as part of their system architecture. The next step forward is implementation of this feature which will allow further simplification of their design. Mr. Slywka believes this point will reduce yet more cost from their overall system price and ultimately deliver new services to customers with very little or no added cost. Think of it as a free performance report. Quick easy start-up, efficient adjustments along the way, remote monitoring and historical data logging are the future. eWON is creating the future now.
Benefits
• Reducing the hardware costs of remote connectivity by over 20%
• Minimizing new project IT lead times by 40-50%
• Providing attractive new customer services with minimal development
Tri-Phase Automation is a eWon/HMS distributor in Wisconsin.
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