LinkedIn
Facebook
X
Trending Posts
American Water – Cloud-Based Visibility for Modern Water Operations
American Water is the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States, with more than 6,400 dedicated professionals delivering drinking water, wastewater, and related services to an estimated 14 million people across 24 states. Operating in approximately 1,700 communities and serving 3.4 million customers, American Water continually invests in technology to improve operational efficiency, asset reliability, and regulatory compliance across its hundreds of water and wastewater facilities.
Challenge
As American Water sought to extend operational visibility beyond its control rooms, the New Jersey Division faced key challenges:
- Constrained SCADA Access: Engineers, regional managers, and executives needed real-time operational data, but every additional SCADA login increased load on the operations center and raised cybersecurity concerns.
- Disparate Remote Access Methods: Multiple VPNs, jump hosts, and ad-hoc tools created an inconsistent, difficult-to-manage user experience for personnel needing operational data.
- Operational Risk: Granting broader SCADA access risked unintentional changes that could disrupt validated treatment and distribution operations.
- Aggregation Across Sites: With water and wastewater facilities spread across the division, leadership needed a single, consolidated view of performance and alarms.
- Compliance & Reporting: Regulatory and internal reporting demanded reliable, time-stamped historical data without diverting operations staff to manual report-pulling.
Solution
In 2016, American Water’s New Jersey Division partnered with FacilityConneX to launch secure, cloud-based remote monitoring and visualization for SCADA data—giving the broader organization the operational insight it needed without burdening the operations center. Leveraging FacilityConneX’s deep OT/IT integration expertise and its SmartWater platform, American Water gained a unified, read-only view of its plants and remote sites accessible from anywhere.
Key aspects of the solution included:
- Read-Only SCADA Replication: Operational data is securely replicated to the FacilityConneX cloud, eliminating direct user access to live control systems.
- Edge-to-Cloud Connectivity: Reliable, encrypted bridges between plant equipment and cloud applications, supporting 200+ industrial protocols.
- Unified Dashboards: Custom, role-based views aggregate data across multiple water and wastewater sites into a single pane of glass.
- Mobile & Web Access: Real-time data, KPIs, and alarms available from any device—no SCADA login required.
How FacilityConneX Helped
FacilityConneX empowered American Water to:
- Unburden the Operations Center: Non-SCADA users can self-serve operational data without disrupting the control room.
- Strengthen Cybersecurity: Consolidates and replaces multiple remote access methods with one secure, audited cloud entry point.
- Aggregate Data Across Sites: Brings facility data together from many sources for division-wide visibility and benchmarking.
- Enable Predictive Insight: Advanced analytics surface early indicators of pump performance issues, water loss, and equipment health.
- Streamline Compliance & Reporting: Time-aligned historical data and configurable reports support regulatory and internal reviews without operational overhead.
Summary
Organization: American Water (New Jersey Division)
Platform Implemented: FacilityConneX SmartWater (Cloud-Based Remote Monitoring & Visualization)
Initial Deployment: 2016
Key Benefits: Secure cloud-based SCADA visibility, reduced burden on the operations center, consolidated remote access, real-time mobile dashboards, predictive analytics, and streamlined compliance reporting.
Results at a Glance
- Secure, read-only SCADA data access without disrupting operations
- Consolidated multiple remote access methods into one cloud platform
- Division-wide visibility across multiple water and wastewater sites
- Real-time dashboards and alarms accessible from any device
- Predictive analytics for pump performance and water loss reduction
- Foundation for ongoing digital transformation across American Water
American Water – Cloud-Based Visibility for Modern Water Operations
American Water is the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States, with more than 6,400 dedicated professionals delivering drinking water, wastewater, and related services to an estimated 14 million people across 24 states. Operating in approximately 1,700 communities and serving 3.4 million customers, American Water continually invests in technology to improve operational efficiency, asset reliability, and regulatory compliance across its hundreds of water and wastewater facilities.
Challenge
As American Water sought to extend operational visibility beyond its control rooms, the New Jersey Division faced key challenges:
- Constrained SCADA Access: Engineers, regional managers, and executives needed real-time operational data, but every additional SCADA login increased load on the operations center and raised cybersecurity concerns.
- Disparate Remote Access Methods: Multiple VPNs, jump hosts, and ad-hoc tools created an inconsistent, difficult-to-manage user experience for personnel needing operational data.
- Operational Risk: Granting broader SCADA access risked unintentional changes that could disrupt validated treatment and distribution operations.
- Aggregation Across Sites: With water and wastewater facilities spread across the division, leadership needed a single, consolidated view of performance and alarms.
- Compliance & Reporting: Regulatory and internal reporting demanded reliable, time-stamped historical data without diverting operations staff to manual report-pulling.
Solution
In 2016, American Water’s New Jersey Division partnered with FacilityConneX to launch secure, cloud-based remote monitoring and visualization for SCADA data—giving the broader organization the operational insight it needed without burdening the operations center. Leveraging FacilityConneX’s deep OT/IT integration expertise and its SmartWater platform, American Water gained a unified, read-only view of its plants and remote sites accessible from anywhere.
Key aspects of the solution included:
- Read-Only SCADA Replication: Operational data is securely replicated to the FacilityConneX cloud, eliminating direct user access to live control systems.
- Edge-to-Cloud Connectivity: Reliable, encrypted bridges between plant equipment and cloud applications, supporting 200+ industrial protocols.
- Unified Dashboards: Custom, role-based views aggregate data across multiple water and wastewater sites into a single pane of glass.
- Mobile & Web Access: Real-time data, KPIs, and alarms available from any device—no SCADA login required.
How FacilityConneX Helped
FacilityConneX empowered American Water to:
- Unburden the Operations Center: Non-SCADA users can self-serve operational data without disrupting the control room.
- Strengthen Cybersecurity: Consolidates and replaces multiple remote access methods with one secure, audited cloud entry point.
- Aggregate Data Across Sites: Brings facility data together from many sources for division-wide visibility and benchmarking.
- Enable Predictive Insight: Advanced analytics surface early indicators of pump performance issues, water loss, and equipment health.
- Streamline Compliance & Reporting: Time-aligned historical data and configurable reports support regulatory and internal reviews without operational overhead.
Summary
Organization: American Water (New Jersey Division)
Platform Implemented: FacilityConneX SmartWater (Cloud-Based Remote Monitoring & Visualization)
Initial Deployment: 2016
Key Benefits: Secure cloud-based SCADA visibility, reduced burden on the operations center, consolidated remote access, real-time mobile dashboards, predictive analytics, and streamlined compliance reporting.
Results at a Glance
- Secure, read-only SCADA data access without disrupting operations
- Consolidated multiple remote access methods into one cloud platform
- Division-wide visibility across multiple water and wastewater sites
- Real-time dashboards and alarms accessible from any device
- Predictive analytics for pump performance and water loss reduction
- Foundation for ongoing digital transformation across American Water
FacilityConneX can help you identify, prioritize, and solve problems before they become risks. Want help choosing the right system, or need a second opinion on your current setup? We’re just a message away. Contact FacilityConneX at info@facilityconnex.com to learn how secure cloud-based solutions can provide complete data visibility without operational disruption.
LinkedIn
Facebook
X