In telemetry, data sources are spread out over 100+ miles from one end to the other. The ease of knowing what is going on everywhere is critical. Kelly Zini, President of Control Products Unlimited, points out, "a pump station and boosters may be moving water several miles in one direction, and we have to know the level at the other end so we don't overflow, and we have to watch the source to prevent pump cavitation. So the challenge is to in as real time as possible, let the source and destination end know what each other are doing. This challenge isn't unique to the water/wastewater business and our software was designed from the ground up to solve tough telemetry challenges, regardless of the industry. Our goal was to have a solution that once you set your tags up for each of the locations, you identify a destination and the source, and the software maps the data between the two". One of the challenges that Control Products Unlimited faced was providing reliable connectivity that handles the unique requirements of telemetry systems while being able to support the widest range of hardware possible. In the early days of their solutions, this challenge inherently limited their offering to applications where they could write their own drivers. Adds Kelly Zini, "Our goal was to design a simplistic development environment that incorporated powerful features such as distributed processing, generic data storage, graphical process representation, and a wealth of reporting options. The most important requirement was that this product must support connectivity to all major industrial equipment and field instrumentation brands."
This is where OPC fits into the Control Products Unlimited solution set. According to Kelly, "When the OPC standard became to be well accepted, we knew that it had the potential to be the solution to allow us to leverage the R&D efforts of best-of-breed software providers focusing on connectivity while we focused on our unique value add in the application of telemetry." After an evaluation of OPC providers, Control Products Unlimited chose to work with Software Toolbox Inc. and their TOP Server product as their platform for connectivity. Adds Kelly, "Software Toolbox had a good reputation for quality support and high technical aptitude, combined with a product offering that gave us access to just about any device type we could imagine – throughout our entire development cycle, they worked with us and supported us all the way to help us deliver a solid platform." By choosing OPC, Control Products Unlimited was able to offer the broadest level of support combined with increased protection from obsolescence as their partner companies are continually improving and adding features to their portion of the solution.
Control Products Unlimited has made unique use of some of the lesser known features of OPC that have allowed it to overcome challenges that others could not. Designed and developed following the OPC Data Access 2.X specification, CPUtilities overcomes an inherent shortcoming of telemetry applications through the use of the OPC IPersistFile interface. Telemetry solutions frequently have multiple brands of remote field equipment which communicate over a common link such as a modem or radio. CPUtilities addresses this limitation by dynamically loading OPC driver configurations to insure a seamless movement of information between dissimilar devices. Kelly added, "Designing CPUtilities to simplify data movement for telemetry solutions resulted in a product that also fits perfectly in discrete processes. We repeatedly encounter facilities that have incorporated dissimilar controls on their manufacturing equipment. CPUtilities has been applied to bridge these islands of automation streamlining production therefore increasing overall plant efficiency." The results for CPUtitlities users have been impressive as evidence by what they have had to say: "Converting our remote site communications from dial-up to wireless Ethernet was easily accomplished within a matter of minutes. The CPUtilites and TOP Server software provide a high performance and stable environment for housing our mission critical data." Ron Malcom, Rogers County Rural Water District Operations "The move from a proprietary control system to an OPC based solution has dramatically improved the operation of our facility . The wealth of tools comprising the CPUtilities and TOP Server products have allowed us to perform more maintenance tasks in house decreasing downtime and outsourced support costs." Jerry Gammill, Washington County Rural Water District Manager
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