Many municipalities struggle to support increasingly sophisticated control systems due to limited available staff. Tesco’s Extended Maintenance and Systems Support (EMASS) group is designed to supplement in-house efforts and keep things running smoothly.
Matt Boyer, the Tesco Controls EMASS supervisor, was published in Control Engineering December 2022 Global Systems Integrator Report, with his article titled Sustaining SI Support for Water/Wastewater Facilities. The topic is the need within industry for advanced electrical, instrumentation, and controls support, and how a well-staffed systems integrator (SI) can create a group designed to help end users maintain, calibrate, and troubleshoot their systems. The following is a synopsis of the article. To read the full article, click here.
Relying on an SI for support
Traditional municipal facilities used basic sensing and automation technologies for measuring values like pressure, flow, and level, and controlling them with pumps and valves. Modern facilities use much more sophisticated technologies to provide optimized efficiency, but these often involve greater complexity and can be more challenging to support. This is the especially the case as agencies struggle to hire and retain multidisciplined staff, with experience in:
- Intelligent electrical equipment, meters, and VFDs
- Smart instruments
- PLC programming
- HMI and SCADA development
- Networking and radio telemetry
- General electrical, mechanical, and safety maintenance and operations
Engaging an SI
Some SI’s have provided limited support on a case-by-case basis, often billed at time and material (T&M) rates based on the availability of their staff. The Tesco Controls team recognized a better approach was needed, so they created a full-service Extended Maintenance and Systems Support (EMASS) group. EMASS operates under a contractual model so that team members can support clients routinely and proactively for all aspects of their automation and power distribution systems. They monitor system health, identify potential problems, and often mitigate issues before they occur.
By engaging a well-versed system integrator from outside the municipality to routinely inspect control panels, facilities can significantly mitigate potential points of failure inhouse operational staff may not notice while focusing on day-to-day issues.
Service contracts investigate control and electrical panels, frequently identifying situations like a failed UPS or a dead PLC backup battery, and then work with onsite staff resolve the problem before a costly outage occurs.
Similarly, safe and competent inspections of MCCs, VFDS, and other electrical gear can uncover loose connections—often using infrared scans—or failing components.
Many sites use hundreds or thousands of field instruments, each requiring periodic calibration and verification. End users overwhelmed by the volume of work can lean on the Tesco Controls EMASS group for assistance.
Of course, the EMASS group is also available for emergency call-outs. But end users tend to appreciate the proactive approach, because these site visits can address minor issues before they become major problems, while acting as training sessions.
A well-staffed SI firm like Tesco Controls possesses the right mix of multidisciplinary personnel and extensive knowledgebases, along with the ability to provide crucial sustaining support to end user clients, helping their plants and facilities stay online and run at peak performance.
Tesco Controls is a certified member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA).
Author
Matt Boyer is the extended maintenance and system services (EMASS) supervisor at Tesco Controls. Boyer has extensive experience as a field service engineer in the water/wastewater and automotive racing industries, and holds ISA CCST Level 1 and Inductive Automation Ignition SCADA platform certifications, has a BA in Political Science with a minor in History, and an AA in Automotive Technology.