02-04-11 BPU RPT 10 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

W A T E R I E N E R G Y I l I E E RIVERSIDE PUBLIC UTILITIES Board Memorandum P U B L I C U T T I I T T F $ BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITIES DATE: February 4, 2011 ITEM NO: 10 SUBJECT: WATER SCADA SYSTEM UPGRADE—WORK ORDER NO. 1108261 ISSUE: That the Board of Public Utilities consider approval of a capital expenditure in the amount of$400,000 to upgrade the Water SCADA System. RECOMMENDATIONS: That the Board of Public Utilities: 1. Approve the capital expenditure of$400,000 for Work Order No.1108261, which includes all work and contingencies for the Water SCADA System Upgrade; and 2. Approve a professional services agreement for the Water SCADA System Upgrade with Transdyn, Inc. of Pleasanton, California, in the amount of$370,537 for the Water SCADA System Upgrade. BACKGROUND: The Riverside Public Utilities Water Department uses a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) to control and monitor over 120 sites, including wells, boosters, reservoirs, pressure reducing stations, chlorination stations, etc. This system needs to be upgraded to ensure its viability and reduce its operating and maintenance costs. The existing Water SCADA software, called Dynac, was installed in 2004 by Transdyn, Inc of Pleasanton, California (Transdyn) who was selected via the competitive bid process. However, this version of the software can only run on an obsolete platform—a legacy Alpha Server hardware coupled with a legacy Open VMS operating system. The legacy Alpha systems are no longer being produced; therefore, replacement hardware must be salvaged from used systems; and the supply of used parts is rapidly dwindling. In addition to the challenges maintaining the platform, the 2004 version of Dynac is difficult to program since it uses command line inputs rather than "point and click" inputs. In other words, it runs more like a "DOS" system than a"Windows"system. Because it requires several lines of code, each User Interface(UI)Screen takes hours to create. The existing Water SCADA system already has over 700 UI Screens and will need several more as the water system becomes more automated. The City of Riverside (City) currently hires Transdyn to create these new UI Screens at an average cost of $2,500, each. Without better tools, the existing SCADA system will become increasingly expensive to operate and maintain. The proposed upgrade will include a later version of the software, called Dynac ES. Using a"Windows"type interface, this software comes with several new tools that will reduce the time needed to create and maintain UI Screens. With these new tools, the City will be able to create more of its own screens, resulting in substantial savings. In addition, Dynac ES can run on a platform consisting of a PC Server (e.g. Dell) coupled with a Linux based operating system, which is much less expensive than the Alpha platform. Since the Dynac ES software is proprietary, the City will negotiate a contract with Transdyn to do the work.