Security Directors News October 2009
When does technology get to be too much? Water provider figures a way to drink from the firehose By Leischen Stelter - 10.20.2009
BRYN MAWR, Pa.—Having technology in place to protect critical
infrastructure is vital for adequate security, but what happens when
technology gets to be too much?
“One of our big issues was
that we had an overwhelming amount of information coming in,” said
Terry Lyons safety manager for Aqua America, a water and wastewater
treatment provider serving three million people in 13 states. “We have
125 systems online and a lot of cameras and different systems and
different technologies to cover all types of facilities, so we needed a
system to pull that all together and make sure our operator monitoring
system detected alarms in a timely manner.”
The company has
more than 800 cameras in addition to various technologies such as
ground-based radar systems, and access control systems are used to
protect water plants, dams, reservoirs and storage tanks over a large
geographic area.
In order to bring all these different
sensors together in a manageable way, the company deployed situation
management software from Orsus. But Aqua America’s dilemma of having
too much information isn’t a unique scenario, said Jacob Fox,
president, Americas, for Orsus. “Organizations with many technologies,
after they implement different systems, all of a sudden they realize
that they’re overwhelmed with information and have a jungle of systems
to manage and they don’t know what’s happening,” he said.
But
bringing all these technologies together wasn’t a simple task. “Another
challenge was based on the complexity of the site,” said Ian Francisco,
CEO of Unlimited Technology, the integrator on the project. “There was
not always communication interfaces, which were required, so we had to
work with different technologies available–everything from commercial
cable carriers to satellite links to cellular providers–they all
interfaced into the operation of the system to gain connectivity.”
The
benefit of integrating Orsus Situator was that it not only allowed Aqua
America to manage information better, it also allowed the organization
to customize operator procedures during an event, which was a critical
feature. “Once the system is set up, the administrator can change the
rules and edit policies and procedures and can add or delete or change
the hierarchy of alarm events,” said Francisco. While each facility is
self-managed and controls events and alarms locally, Aqua America
programmed the system so that when designated alarms are triggered,
such as a forced entry into a facility, executives at the Bryn Mawr
headquarters will simultaneously be notified.
“If a tank alarm goes off, all key cameras can look at it quickly and operators can make an assessment. That’s an issue in the water industry–to be able to quickly make informed decisions,” Lyons said.
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