THE LANNION WATER PLANT WITH ALERT, KERGOMAR HAS CROSSED INTO THE FIELD OF PREVENTIVE MANAGEMENT

Kergomar Lannion water plant, Brittany

Key Figures

• 7,000 m3 of water per day


• 22,000 users the entire town of Lannion and several neighbouring districts


• 2 plants
• Kergomar
• Pradic Glas.


• 6 remote reservoirs either on the ground or in towers.

Alert has gained a following

The opinion leader, who recommended the acquisition of the product, was familiar with ALERT because his previous employer used the software side-by-side with Wizcon. When he arrived at the Kergomar plant 5 years ago, he realised that no system had been installed. He therefore set up Alert by applying the exact configuration that had worked so well for his previous firm. He works with the help of the integrator
, which is based in Brest.

The Alert system: A natural choice

The information fed through by the remote sites is transferred to the Wizcon supervisor by radio, at a rate of one query each minute. This data is exported to Alert, which monitors variables such as: high level, low level, drop in pressure, pH, chlorine, discharge, etc In total, around 100 alarms have been defined.

The plant can obtain one query result a minute, i.e. practically in real time. The level of precision is therefore optimal and risks are minimised, but the price is more attractive.

The teams

6 duty teams have been defined. These teams change every week and each team has a supervisor:
In the event of an alarm, a 4-stage scenario has been defined. These stages are ranked in the following order of priority, should the previous stage fail:

Supervisor called on fixed plant no.
Supervisor called on mobile phone
Supervisor called on private mobile phone
replacement staff identified in the schedule

Each member of the team is assigned an identification number, which is requested when they attempt to acknowledge the alarm. When the recipient receives the alarm, they can listen to the message more than once. They must then acknowledge the alarm by pressing one of the digits on their telephone.

The alarm message

The alarm message sent to the telephone is based on predefined text which the RealSpeak voice synthesizer automatically converts into a voice message. In the words of the user, the system was ultra-quick to define: its set-up presented no difficulties whatsoever. No specific programming skills are required, and it is very easy for a control engineer to master even if they have only limited knowledge of IT.

The control centre is equipped with four monitors.
One of these monitors is permanently dedicated to Alert.
This data can also be viewed from the home of the project manager thanks to PC Anywhere.

Alert: from crisis management to preventive management

Previously, if an anomaly occurred, the lack of a safety system delayed the problems identification and therefore its resolution, to such an extent that customers often bore the brunt of the consequences. Thus, the plant found itself in the uncomfortable position of being notified of a fault by its customers. Not having a system therefore seriously compromised quality of service, as well as internal (company hierarchy) and external (users) credibility. On top of this, identifying faults too late was costly: it is always harder to resolve a problem after it has occurred, because this ultimately leads to greater damage and the need for more extensive repairs.

When the system was installed, Kergomar switched from crisis management to preventive management. The ability to anticipate that Alert provides has made it possible to spare customers the inconvenience that incidents can lead to. Alert has also allowed considerable time and financial savings to be achieved.

Problems can now be addressed even before they occur. The maintenance team knows it will be warned of problems very early on and that it will be able to react in time, thus benefiting from added peace of mind. As a result, the plant runs smoothly, continuously and therefore infallibly, as far as the user is concerned. Customer confidence is therefore guaranteed. The system also fulfils internal quality requirements.

In five years, the Kergomar plants have not experienced a single failure in the Alert system. According to users at Kergomar, complete reliability and simplicity are the terms that best describe Alert.