I remember the first time I saw a device that could communicate to a computer in an electric substation. The concept of being able to communicate to a device and get information about events in the substation was phenomenal. The sales pitch was just as impressive. The device came standard with an RS-232 port and supported serial communications. This was my first introduction to the digital age of monitoring and control equipment. There was a catch that went undiscovered for a while; the salesman didn’t bother to mention it. Given the significance of the issue, it is not surprising that it wasn’t mentioned. Serial communications was (and still is) quite limiting, especially the RS-232 variety. Furthermore, this was a long time before the concept of open systems. In order to talk to the device you had to use the manufacturer’s software. That software was designed to talk to that device and nothing more, and only one unit at a time.

In many ways, we have come a long ways since those early days. But the remnants of those early limitations still exist and, not surprisingly, most users still are not aware of those basic limitations.

Today, almost every device used to measure any WAGES (water, air, gas, electric, steam) value includes digital communication as a standard feature. Most have completely abandoned the RS-232 standard. Almost all devices support RS-485/422 connections and many support direct Ethernet connections. But the sales pitch hasn’t changed a lot and users still often buy a partial solution as a result.

Modern metering vendors support communications and “prove it” by supplying vendor-developed software that pulls data from their device and displays it in a variety of methods. Some devices include embedded web pages to address customer desires to obtain access from multiple locations.

All of these changes represent real progress in monitoring technology. Unfortunately they have not provided users with a high level of understanding about the quantities and systems being metered. Instead the technology contributes to further silo-ing of data thereby blocking a wider community in the organization from understanding the real condition in the facility.

Device-based software is by necessity limited in its ability to coalesce data from a wide range of devices. Although individual vendor products provide a high degree of detail from the vendor’s devices, it will not support combinations and comparisons. Generally, it allows viewing data from only one device at a time. Although it may show multiple devices supplied by that vendor, a user can usually only see the active data from one device. It is also impossible to combine data from multiple metering devices.

There are certain environments where vendor-specific, device-based software provides an adequate solution. If a site has only one or two meters and only one type of quantity to measure (e.g. electric metering only), then these proprietary vendor solutions provide a cost effective and usually quite usable solution. However in all other environments, this solution has several insurmountable limitations.

These limitations usually create some kind of dead-end for users in larger facilities.

1- The user is forced into a proprietary condition where they have to keep using a single vendor’s product in each WAGES area

2- The user is forced to have different software platforms for each WAGES area

3- The user cannot combine different WAGES data and must perform manual combinations or analysis.

Conversely, monitoring systems are designed to collect data from multiple devices and present that data simultaneously. Systems inherently provide numerous advantages over device-based software:

1- Because systems collect data from multiple devices they enable the combination and presentation of calculated results from the raw data collected from the meters.

2- Systems can connect to devices from many different hardware vendors.

3- Systems can connect to all different types of devices (water, air, gas, electric, steam and more).

4- Well designed systems typically include the capability to attach to historian and/or advanced analytical software to further improve management capability to understand an overall picture of WAGES use in one or more facilities.

A well-designed monitoring system presents the most effective tool to collect, combine, analyze and present WAGES information. Prior to investing in any monitoring solution, users should investigate open-systems monitoring solutions to ensure that they avoid pitfalls of device-based products.

Your comments and questions are invited.