Huia Village Water Treatment Plant

Safeguarding Auckland’s Water Supply

What happens when there is an error at the treatment plant responsible for delivering up to 20% of Auckland’s water?

Now, the right people are alerted to do something about it. Previously, errors could go undetected for some time before they were able to be addressed.

Recently, Controlweb was engaged to re-engineer the process control of the Huia Village Water Treatment Plant. Previously the plant could trip without a clear indication of what the root cause could be, and other faults were going undetected. To prevent ongoing issues like this from happening, the objective was to have the plant run on a fully automated basis, but clearly and concisely indicate if it needed human intervention.

The philosophy we chose to follow was Abnormal Situation Management, which is a well-documented way of designing human machine interfaces.

New control algorithms were implemented to better manage the production of the plant. We also created standardised Control Modules, Equipment Modules and Units for the Physical Model. Unit Procedures and a Procedure (for overall plant control) was created for the Process Model.

Controlweb also developed the change over methodology between old and new control strategies as the plant is in daily use. The result was that the software was replaced within just three eight hour shut periods. This is extraordinary for a complete membrane water treatment plant.

Not only are all of the systems updated to be fully automated, but all of the process variables are now handled within the process modules of the plant. This includes trips, production set points, alarms and reports. This is a huge bonus for the Huia Village team as previously they were in various other locations.

Now, if there is ever an error at the Huia Village Water Treatment Plant, it can be dealt with swiftly and effectively. There is no guesswork or fear of undetected issues. Our client can rest easy knowing that things are automatically running smoothly.