Illinois Utility was faced with a problem. As a supplier of water in the Southwest area, they needed to find a way to control the water level in various tanks in the area. To do this, Illinois needed to control their Programmable Logical Controllers (PLC's) in each water tank remotely from their main facility computer system in Woodridge, IL. The PLC's allowed them to monitor the level of water in each tank to assure an adequate supply at all time.
Illinois Utility turned to Heritage Technology Solutions to design a wide area remote communication solution. Heritage came up with (3) different options, the first being a solution with straight router technology, the second being a straight wireless technology and the third option following extensive research and site surveys, a hybrid of a router technology mixed with a radio wireless technology.
After several meeting with Illinois Utility and reviewing each option, Heritage designed and implemented the wide area solution utilizing several Cisco routers along with MDS radio technology. The result was a tremendous success for both Illinois Utility and Heritage Technology Solutions.
The benefits to Illinois Utility have been tremendous as they are now getting high speed access to all of their locations at a minimal cost. They are able to control all water tanks remotely from one location, increase productivity and lower overall maintenance cost. As a result, Illinois Utility entered into a service agreement with Heritage to utilize their expertise in supporting and consulting for their entire computer network system.
