Of California
Customer Background
Suburban Water Systems provides high-quality water services to over 300,000 customers in a 42-square-mile service area in California. Suburban Water Systems serves customers through a water distribution system that includes 20 wells, 34 reservoirs, and more than 870 miles of pipeline. In 2024, the merger of Cortix Infrastructure and SouthWest Water Company created a new organization that Suburban Water Systems now lives under.
Project Background
To ensure the proper stakeholders could interact with and maintain control over various areas, plants, and districts, Suburban Water Systems planned to standardize SCADA systems across their organization. Suburban Water chose VTScada, which offers a permission infrastructure that allows the parent organization to administer and control Suburban’s various water and wastewater districts.
Beyond alignment with the parent organization, upgrading to VTScada provided Suburban Water Systems long-term advantages and reduced risk. For over two decades, they had been using a BIF SCADA system that had been developed largely in-house and adapted over the years to meet local needs. Because it was a unique, legacy platform, most of the institutional knowledge lived with key staff who had been successfully managing it for years. But getting any additional support for maintenance or development would have been difficult due to the specialized nature of this platform. By adopting a more widely used platform, it would be much easier to find personnel or consultants who could continue to work on their SCADA system in the future.
Tetra Tech Digital Systems
Suburban Water Systems wanted to first run a VTScada pilot at the Sativa district. They contracted Tetra Tech Digital Systems to upgrade their system and teach the operators how to navigate a modern SCADA system. As a certified Advanced Solutions Provider, Tetra Tech has extensive experience implementing VTScada solutions and has been invested in creating efficient configuration to meet operator needs.
This was a big shift for Suburban Water staff, who were accustomed to using BIF for years. To make this as smooth of a transition as possible, the dialogue between Tetra Tech engineers and Suburban Water remained open and ongoing. The project kicked off with a hands on design workshop to capture Suburban Water’s functional requirements and alarm priorities. Tetra Tech Digital Systems then translated those requirements into SCADA screen, network architecture, and alarm design concepts. Through this process, Tetra Tech guided the client through options, validated decisions, and confirmed buy in before finalizing solutions that addressed their pain points.
Alongside developing the platform, Tetra Tech engineers introduced the staff on the capabilities of their new system, including trends, reporting, alarms, and graphics. Engineers used time-saving methods to make a scalable platform by designing standardized templates to build out the different sites and tag types, which could be modified to use on future site upgrades. A key advantage of VTScada is that it lets engineers build customizable templates with optional configuration settings, so each installation can be adapted to its particular needs instead of forcing a uniform design.
As the stakeholders at Suburban Water became more familiar with the functionality of VTScada through the pilot project, so did their ability to identify areas for improvement more effectively. This pilot left Suburban Water Systems confident in their next steps to convert their other districts, which have also been entrusted to Tetra Tech Digital Systems.
Head over to Tetra Tech Digital Systems’ website!
VTScada
VTScada is a strong fit for Suburban Water Systems of California because it provides a reliable, secure, and scalable SCADA platform designed to support critical water utility operations. The system offers real-time monitoring and control of wells, pump stations, reservoirs, pressure zones, and distribution networks, helping operators quickly identify and respond to operational issues. VTScada’s built-in alarm management, historical data logging, and reporting capabilities improve regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, and system reliability. Additionally, its web and mobile access enables staff to monitor and manage infrastructure remotely, reducing response times and supporting proactive maintenance. As Suburban Water Systems continues to modernize its operations, VTScada provides a cost-effective solution that can grow with the utility’s future needs while enhancing service reliability for customers.