SCADA Software for Water and Wastewater
Treatment plants, pump stations and distribution networks, from one platform.
FrameworX is a SCADA and telemetry platform for water and wastewater utilities. It monitors and controls treatment plants, well fields, lift and pump stations, reservoirs and distribution networks from a single system, connecting to remote sites over cellular, radio and Ethernet. It includes a store-and-forward historian so data from a site is complete after a communications outage, alarm callout to phone and email, and the reporting needed for regulatory submissions. Local tags are unlimited in every edition, and the same project runs in the control room, on the plant floor and on a phone in the field.
A distributed problem before it is a control problem
Water and wastewater is a distributed problem before it is a control problem. A single utility can run a treatment plant, a well field, several booster and lift stations, elevated tanks and a reservoir, spread across a county and connected by whatever communications the terrain allows. The plant is staffed. Most of the rest is not.
That shapes what the software has to do. It has to keep working when a cellular link drops and fill in the record when it returns. It has to reach an operator at home at two in the morning. It has to produce the report a regulator asks for without somebody rebuilding it by hand every month. And it has to do all of that on a budget set by a rate base rather than by a production line.
What FrameworX does for a water utility
Remote sites over the links you actually have
FrameworX polls remote stations over cellular routers, licensed radio, wireless Ethernet and fibre, and the polling rate is set per device rather than globally, so a slow radio link and a fibre-connected plant can sit in the same project without the slow one holding the rest back.
A complete record after an outage
The historian stores and forwards. When a site loses its link, data continues to be collected locally and is backfilled when the connection returns, so the archive does not carry a hole where the outage was. For a utility whose historical data supports a regulatory submission, that gap is the whole problem.
Alarms that reach a person
Alarm items, groups and areas, with acknowledgement workflows, shelving and a full audit trail. Notification by email and by text message to an operator’s phone, who can then open the same system from a browser or a phone without installing anything.
One project, three places
The control room, the plant and the field see the same application. The HTML5 client runs in a browser with no installation, on desktop and mobile.
Reporting that does not need rebuilding
Scheduled and on-demand reports in PDF, CSV and XML, drawn from the historian and from operator-entered values, which is how consumption, chemical dosing and compliance reports are usually built.
Unlimited local tags
Local tags are unlimited in every edition. The paid scaling axis is external I/O points, so adding a screen, a trend or a calculated value costs nothing, and a utility can model its assets properly rather than economising on tag names.
Connectivity for water
Water runs on older and more varied equipment than most sectors, and a platform that only speaks modern protocols is not usable.
FrameworX includes more than 100 native connectors. The ones this sector reaches for:
- DNP3, for distribution telemetry and RTUs
- Modbus TCP and RTU, including serial over radio and cellular
- WITS telemetry, for water-industry outstations
- OPC UA, client and server
- MQTT and Sparkplug B, both directions, with a built-in broker, for bandwidth-efficient reporting over cellular
- Allen-Bradley (ControlLogix, MicroLogix, SLC, PLC5), Modicon, Siemens S7, Omron, BACnet, SNMP
- SQL databases, for LIMS and asset-management integration
Connectors are included in the license rather than sold per protocol.
The RFP checklist, answered
What a water utility should require of a SCADA platform, and where FrameworX stands on each line.
| What a water RFP asks for | FrameworX |
|---|---|
| Redundant SCADA servers | FrameworXHot-standby redundancy, licensed as an option |
| Local control continues if SCADA is down | FrameworXControl stays in the PLC or RTU. FrameworX is the supervisory layer, not the control loop |
| Historian with configurable retention | FrameworXBuilt in, with configurable retention and unlimited retention at the Enterprise tier |
| Alarm management and shelving | FrameworXItems, groups and areas, acknowledgement workflows, shelving, audit trail |
| SMS, email and voice alarm notification | FrameworXEmail and text message built in |
| Web and mobile operator access | FrameworXHTML5 client, zero install, desktop and mobile |
| Role-based security and audit trails | FrameworXRole-based access control, secrets vault, full audit trail |
| OPC UA | FrameworXClient and server |
| Modbus TCP and RTU | FrameworXNative |
| DNP3 for remote telemetry | FrameworXNative |
| Automatic communication-loss detection | FrameworXPer-node communication status, primary and backup station with configurable failover timeout |
| Store-and-forward and backfill for remote sites | FrameworXBuilt into the historian |
| Pump runtime and start-count tracking | FrameworXStandard historian and calculation work, no add-on module |
| Flow, level, pressure and water-quality trending | FrameworXTrend displays with annotations, on desktop and mobile |
| Chemical feed monitoring | FrameworXTag, alarm, trend and report like any other process value |
| Energy and demand monitoring | FrameworXSame, with SQL logging for billing-period analysis |
| Report generation | FrameworXPDF, CSV, XML, scheduled or on demand |
| SQL and database connectivity | FrameworXNative, including to LIMS and asset systems |
| Redundant communications | FrameworXPrimary and backup station per node, with automatic switching |
| Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure | FrameworXRole-based access, TLS, secure gateway, secrets vault, audit trail, and configuration guides for IEC 62443 |
| Backup, restore and disaster recovery | FrameworXProject export and import, and Git-friendly JSON for version control |
| No internet dependency for plant operation | FrameworXThe plant runs on premises. Cloud and remote access are optional |
| PID and process control visualization | FrameworXStandard display and faceplate work |
Utilities already running FrameworX
Water Authority for Clifton Park, Saratoga County, New York
Drinking water from multiple wells across a wide geographic area, treated and distributed with storage tanks and valves under SCADA. The authority replaced a legacy system whose intermittent communications and gaps in trend archiving were a data-integrity risk in a highly regulated process. FrameworX interfaces with Sixnet RTUs, Modicon and Rockwell PLCs over a cellular router VPN, with polling rates tuned per station to match each link. Roughly 1,500 tags and 1,200 communication points. Engineering took about one week plus three days on site, and the changeover ran without downtime.
"The FrameworX migration went very smoothly, and the system performance exceeds the performance of our previous SCADA system."
Corey Golden, Chief Water Plant Operator
"The trending display tools in FrameworX allowed us to create a custom trend page that provides exactly the information I need to see to be able to track and predict system operations."
Nate Clark, Assistant Water Plant Operator
System integrator: Teamwork Solutions.
Potable water plant, west of Portland, Oregon
A master PLC in the operations office polls four remote PLCs at a well field, a reservoir, and sand-filter and treatment plants every two seconds over a radio link, reading flow meters, level sensors, pH and chlorine analysers, turbidity meters, pumps and control valves. Alarms are sent to the operator's phone by text message, and the operator can then open the system from home.
System integrator: Frost Engineering.
Lincoln Water District, Maine
Four pumping stations in four separate buildings, twin 500,000-gallon steel standpipe tanks and an underground reservoir, over Modbus to Sixnet I/O modules through cellular routers. Replaced a legacy data-collection system that would not scale to the district's expansion.
"We found FrameworX to be a very easy and intuitive platform. The scalability from a small to enterprise system, wide range of features and connectivity made FrameworX an easy choice."
Mike Rioux, Mobius Automation
Gonvick, Minnesota
Wastewater treatment plant, water treatment plant and lift station, with a Rockwell MicroLogix PLC and three RTUs over wireless Ethernet. Clarifiers, blowers, chemical feed, and lift station levels and pumps. The application was configured in about sixty hours. System integrator: Integrated Process Solutions.
Municipal Authority of Harmar, Pennsylvania
Water distribution from three wells in the Allegheny Valley Aquifer through an ozone treatment plant to four storage facilities, including a 500,000-gallon elevated tank. The integrator built the whole application in just under a week, replacing a custom-coded system that had locked the authority to one provider.
AI, and what it actually does here
FrameworX is AI-Native by architecture. Three Model Context Protocol servers, shipped and generally available, connect an AI model of your choosing to the live engineering project, so an engineer can describe a screen, a report or an alarm set and have it built, reviewing and approving every change before it runs.
The model runs where you decide. FrameworX ships no model. It connects to a local model on your own hardware through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, or to a hosted one, and a setup helper gets a local model running quickly. For a utility that will not send operational data outside its own network, that distinction is the whole question
Common questions
What is SCADA in water and wastewater treatment?
SCADA in water and wastewater monitors and controls the equipment that treats and moves water: pumps, valves, blowers, chemical feed, and the instruments that measure flow, level, pressure, turbidity and chlorine. Because a utility's assets are spread across well fields, treatment plants, lift stations, tanks and distribution networks, a water SCADA system is as much a telemetry system as a control system. It brings remote sites into one view, raises alarms when something goes out of range, archives the data for regulatory reporting, and lets a small team operate a system they cannot visit.
How does water SCADA work at remote sites with unreliable communications?
Remote sites keep working on their own. The PLC or RTU at a lift station continues to run its control logic whether or not the SCADA system can reach it, and the SCADA layer collects, buffers and forwards. FrameworX polls each site at a rate matched to its link, detects communication loss per node, switches to a backup station where one is configured, and backfills the historian when the connection returns so the record has no gap where the outage was.
Which protocols does a water utility need?
Most water systems need Modbus TCP and RTU, DNP3 for distribution telemetry, and the PLC protocols of whatever is installed, usually Allen-Bradley, Modicon or Siemens. WITS telemetry appears at water outstations. OPC UA covers interoperability with other systems, and MQTT with Sparkplug B is used where cellular bandwidth or cost matters. FrameworX includes all of these among more than 100 native connectors, in the license rather than sold per protocol.
Can a water utility replace its SCADA system without shutting the plant down?
Yes, and it is the normal path. Control stays in the PLCs and RTUs, so the new supervisory system can be built and tested against the same equipment while the old one is still running, then cut over station by station. The Water Authority for Clifton Park moved from its legacy system to FrameworX without downtime, after about a week of engineering and three days on site.
How does SCADA support regulatory reporting for drinking water and effluent?
The SCADA historian is the record. It archives measured values with timestamps and quality, keeps an audit trail of operator actions and alarm acknowledgements, and produces scheduled reports in PDF, CSV or XML combining measured data with values the operator enters. That is what a monthly operating report or a consumption report is built from. The reporting is the platform's job; whether a given submission satisfies a given regulator is the utility's, and no software product decides it.
How is water SCADA licensed, and what drives the cost?
FrameworX licenses are perpetual. Local tags are unlimited in every edition, so the scaling cost is external I/O points, meaning the physical signals coming from the field, rather than the number of tag names in the project. Every module, feature and 100+ connectors are included in each license. Annual support is 20 percent per year, or 16 percent on a three-year term, redundancy is plus 50 percent, and moving between editions costs the difference in price.
Does FrameworX run on premises without an internet connection?
Yes. The plant runs on its own servers and network. Remote access, cloud connectors and hosted AI are all optional, and a system can be built with none of them. Where AI is used, FrameworX connects to a model rather than shipping one, and that model can run on the utility's own hardware.
Water utilities buy SCADA once and live with it for fifteen years.
FrameworX licenses are perpetual, every module, feature and 100+ connectors are included in each license, local tags are unlimited, and moving between editions costs the difference in price.