Case Studies - Proven Performance.
The proof of our performance capabilities is in the thousands of Healy-Ruff systems operating successfully all over the world. We've helped communities of all sizes improve their water and wastewater services by reducing costs, improving efficiency and increasing security.
Northville, MI Case Study
The City of Northville is a community of about 7,000 people in suburban Detroit. The city needed to do something to address the rate increases they were paying for their water. The original system was still working reliably, but they knew that upgrading to current control technologies could provide a lot of finacial and operation benefits.
Reducing costs through improved control were only the beginning of benefits. "Healy-Ruff really took this system above and beyond its original intent," said Steve Heidt, Assistant Director of Public Works. "They proposed the icontrol® solution-offering me full control, monitoring, data and alarming capabilities." The icontrol® solution seamlessly integrates true local PLC control and true SCADA functionality with secure remote access. However, rather than the huge capital and engineering investments typically associated with SCADA, all the functionality is provided to Northville for a montly service fee. icontrol® also manages and maintains all of the technologies (communications, hardware, software) for the system.
"We went from significant double-digit annual increases to a reduction of over 10% in our rates from the City of Detroit." said Steve. When considering wages, overtime, mileage and other cost factors, eliminating 75-90 trips is now saving the City of Northville more than $10,000 anually. "The investment in the control system upgrade has already paid for itself!"
Allegan, MI Case Study
Allegan, MI wastewater sytem includes 13 lift stations that pump to an activated sludge-based treatment plant. They recently implemented a major upgrade of their control system using a web-hosted SCADA solution. The new system integrates open-architecture PLC-based control at the plant. The system integrates the old and the new with 7 "legacy" RTUs and 6 new lift station PLC based RTUs.
In addition to reducing operating expenses by more than $15,000 annually, The City of Allegan has experienced many operational benefits by implementing a hosted-SCADA solution, including full SCADA and PLC functionality available via remote access from any PC.
Palmyra, MO Case Study
Palmyra is a community of about 3,500 people near the Mississippi River in northeastern Missouri. A water treatment plant and elevated tank were built in the early 1970s to serve the community’s growing needs. This expanded a system that already had an existing elevated tank (Dickerson Street) and ground storage tank (GST). (Interesting note: the Healy-Ruff control system installed in 1973 is still running the plant.)
An upgrade plan called for adding control valves at each individual tank and a booster pump station at the ground storage tank. The new control system consists of a Micro-VPAC RTU and a level transducer at each tank, which regulates the valve to control the tank levels. Each RTU communicates back to the water plant. A Micro-VPAC also controlled the new booster pump station. At the plant, a Master-VPAC with a graphical, touch-screen interface provided control of the high service pumps as well as serving as a CTU providing supervisory control and an interface to the entire system.
The new system provided substantial cost savings: In order to keep the system “fully charged” the water plant needed to produce/pump water an average of 9.5 hours a day. With the new ability to individually control each tank, only 6.5 hours a day of production are required. This nearly one-third reduction in production requirements has dramatically reduced the need for overtime.
Buffalo Center, IA Case Study
Buffalo Center is a community of about 1,500 people in northern Iowa. The city's water and wastewater needs are served by a system that includes a water plant with two well heads, chemical feed, filtration and two high service pumps; one elevated tank; and two wastewater lift stations. They had installed a control system in the mid-1980s that provided basic on/off pump control with limited communications via a dedicated phone line to the elevated tank.
Healy-Ruff replaced an obsolete control system, eliminating 2-3 major failures per year. We also added monitoring and alarming to 2 seweage lift stations, improved the accuracy of chemical fee and reduced "wear and tear" and extended equipment life of well and high service pumps. The changes reduced energy consumption and run-time of high service pumps by 50%, eliminated $20 monthly telephone charges and saved 2-3 hours per week of labor.
