Buffalo Geological Consulting

Valuable information is hidden in historic SCADA files.  Supervisory control and data aquisition systems monitor conditions in industrial control networks, make decisions and gather information - lots of information - from every monitoring sensor and device in the system.   Unfortunately, the limited reporting capabilities supplied with the typical SCADA system makes data mining difficult.   Our experience is that it is more efficient to avoid the limitations of the SCADA reporting software and write programs that work directly with the historic data files. 



Buffalo Geological can extract information you need.  We understand engineeering and science, the fundamentals of the problems being solved, and the algorithms used to deliver solutions.  We do our work on a job by job, turnkey basis.  We don't sell software, we don't write custom programs for sale.  Thus, the cost for our work is a fraction of what it would be using other options.   Our service can be likened to a tax service:  give us all your receipts in a shoebox, we sort it all out and deliver the information you need.
SCADA DATA MINING
Case Study #1

Problem - A water utility has to report static water levels periodically to the state.  The state requires that measurement of static water is only acceptable if at least four hours have passed since the well in question was last pumped.  Unfortunately, during months of high water demand, wells are pumped quite frequently and days may go by without a qualifying period.  Consequently, an operator may spend hours at the SCADA control terminal looking at pumping and water level graphs for as long at it takes to identify a four hour interval and the associated static water level.

Solution - Buffalo downloads daily log files via modem. Each dBase file is examined by a quick, custom program that automatically identifies each well, the time between pumping events, and then reports the highest static water level for the first qualifying interval closest to the required reporting date.  Once files are downloaded results are available in seconds and emailed to the client.
Case Study #2

Our task was to analyze the trend of specific capacity over a three year period for a number of production water wells.  Water levels and pump rates are logged every fifteen seconds by the SCADA system but the pumping and recovery durations vary and the system software (RSview32) is unable to pick and choose those particular curve-sets having the desired properties for hydrogeological analysis.

Solution - Buffalo bypassed the system reporting software and processed the historic daily files directly. With one pass of a specialized program, data were selected, duplicate or problematic measurements removed, calculations made, and a master file written suitable for graphing and or analysis without any other pre-processing or translation.
Contact us at:  buffalo@buffalogeo.com