Templatizing SCADA Design for the Carlsbad Municipal Water District

CMWD supplies potable, drinking, and recycled water to approximately 92,000 people, while the City of Carlsbad operates wastewater facilities, including lift stations. Their existing SCADA system supported monitoring only, and without remote control or troubleshooting capability, operators visited each of their 50-plus sites at least monthly to manually read pump runtime from dials. CMWD’s master plan called for replacing their aging infrastructure with a high-availability, Ignition-based SCADA system, increasing standardization across all sites to reduce operator cognitive load and free staff for higher-value work.

Our team made three major improvements: new programmable logic controllers (PLC) and SCADA systems; new networking and platform infrastructure; and standardized control panels and wiring. Our engineers developed a template strategy to group the 54 sites by similar function, significantly reducing rework, testing, and commissioning time. This approach saved at least $250,000 and established a repeatable process for future expansion. We also leveraged Ignition’s embedded views to design dynamic human machine interface (HMI) screens that adapt to each site, showing different pumps, generators, or tanks depending on the selected location and delivering a consistent interface that requires minimal training across all sites.

That same attention to long-term performance extended beyond the technology. Our engineers developed documentation and training materials drawn from the most experienced staff on the project so future operators can get up to speed independently without relying on those individuals to fill gaps in institutional knowledge.