Scada
What is SCADA? Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
SCADA is the acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. SCADA is a computer-based system for gathering and analyzing real-time data to monitor and control equipment that deals with critical and time-sensitive materials or events. SCADA systems were first used in the 1960s and are now an integral component in virtually all industrial plant and production facilities.
SCADA Systems are widely used in the following:
- Oil and Gas
- Pipeline monitoring and control
- Remote equipment and asset monitoring and control of production, pumping, and storage locations
- Offshore platforms and onshore wells
- Refineries, petro-chemical stations
- Plant/factory automation
- Water and Wastewater
- Water treatment centers and distribution
- Wastewater collection and treatment facilities
- Utilities
- Electrical power distribution from gas-fired, coal, nuclear
- Electrical power transmission and distribution
- Agriculture / Irrigation
- Manufacturing
- Food and Beverage
- Pharmaceutical
- Telecommunications
- Transportation
- And many others
The importance of SCADA systems is automation. It allows an organization to carefully study and anticipate the optimal response to measured conditions and execute those responses automatically every time. Relying on precise machine control for monitoring equipment and processes virtually eliminates human error. More importantly, it automates common, tedious, routine tasks once performed by a human, which further increases productivity, improves management of critical machine failure in real-time, and minimizes the possibility of controllable environmental disasters.
In addition, SCADA systems are needed to monitor and control a large geographical displacement where an organization may not have enough manpower to cover. Thus, reliable communication and operability of these areas or sites is critical to profitability.