Case History Woodbury County 911 Communications Center

Where:Sioux City, Iowa, USA

What: PowerCommand® 550 Remote Monitoring System

Purpose: Remote monitoring of one DQFAD 1,000 kW generator and 8 OTPC automatic transfer switches to support three mission-critical facilities Critical proof-of-service for emergency standby power required for law enforcement agency accreditation

Primary Choice Factors: Ability to monitor and report on multiple devices and data points Single-source solution

Distributor: Cummins Central Power LLC

Advanced remote monitoring for county emergency operations and data center

Supporting mission-critical operations demands only the most reliable emergency power system and the ability to monitor such equipment. Woodbury County of Sioux City, Iowa—the state’s third largest emergency and 911 operation—needed mission-critical standby power with remote monitoring capability.

The Woodbury County 911 Communications Center and Emergency Operations Center serves a population of 120,000 across Sioux City and Woodbury County, Iowa as well as North Sioux City, South Dakota for emergency and non-emergency assistance for police, fire, medical and general service responders. The facility handles about 50,000 emergency 911 calls and close to 400,000 administrative calls annually.

Remote Monitoring

State-of-the-art monitoringIn April 2013, the three mission-critical facilities, spanning 17,500 square feet, upgraded from an older Cummins monitoring device to the PowerCommand®

550 Remote Monitoring System which provides capability to remotely monitor up to 12 devices, including generator sets, transfer switches, sensors and output controls, all from one device with an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI).

In addition, the Cummins solution also supports Sioux City and Woodbury County’s data backup equipment. “All of the city and county data is backed up live at this location via our own fiber-optic network that serves the city and county data center at the Woodbury County Courthouse located about four miles away,” Sedivy said.

“If we didn’t have electrical backup, we’d have to go to another location and reroute all our 911 calls,” says Glenn Sedivy, 911 communications director at Woodbury County. Emergency operations and 911 operations are housed in the lower level of the Security Institute building, along with a private data center operated by Long Lines Communications LLC.

Since the fall of 2008 when the building opened, a Cummins 1000 kW generator and Cummins remote monitoring system have provided standby power for the Woodbury County facilities and the Long Lines Secure Data Center. Sedivy said: “The generator has served us through several incidents where we lost power through the utility and had to operate on the standby system for periods ranging from a few hours to up to a full day.” The emergency power system was funded by a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security with matching contributions by Woodbury County and Long Lines Communications.

The Security Institute is tucked into a hillside of Western Iowa Tech Community College’s campus. The main level of the two-level building, which is owned by the college, county and city, includes college classrooms and training facilities. The 35,000 square foot building, constructed with concrete and steel walls, requires a three-step entry process to ensure durability and security when natural disasters occur.

The emergency system control box contains the PowerCommand 550remote monitoring system with battery backup.

The PowerCommand remote monitoring system facilitates easier maintenance of Cummins Power Generation equipment, compliance and utility power failure notification.

Installation of the PC 550 is easy and intuitive. Programming is simple with a drop-down box selection to find its own devices. — Jeff Hollendieck, Service Supervisor Cummins Central Power LLC

of the system, dubbing the PC 550 a “mini-server,” which can be accessed via the 911 center’s desktop PCs and main terminals.

The weekly one-hour tests on the PC 550 also aid quarterly mechanical maintenance checks of the emergency-power system. “We can remote start the generator if we need to and when it’s running, you can actually log into it remotely from your desk and pull out information, whether looking at oil pressure or other data,” Sedivy said.

Meeting CALEA documentation requirements One key benefit of the PC 550 is the ease of use in conducting mandatory tests of Woodbury County’s standby power system, required to maintain the Sioux City Police Department’s status as a law enforcement agency accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA).

“Each year we have to provide documentation that the generators have run on a weekly basis,” Sedivy said. Internationally recognized, CALEA accreditation requires comprehensive review of an agency’s organization, management, operations and administration. “Once a month we pull reports which are sent to the police department to see how the generator is performing—from everything from the voltage to transfer switches.”

“We have the new PC 550 system set up to send text messages to a group of individuals responsible for the operation of the facility. The messages advise when the unit starts and stops and if it goes into any type of fault,” Sedivy said. He appreciates the GUI

Electrical service for the Cummins DQFAD generator set and the PowerCommand® remote monitoring system is located in the lower level of the building, along with OTPC transfer switches.

The PC 550 collects and records data about the system operation, and can generate customized reports to suit the user’s requirements.

Easy installationJeff Hollendieck, service supervisor with Cummins Central Power LLC, in Omaha, installed and commissioned the system in less than half a day.

“The control center within the PC 550 converts the LonTalk communications protocol to Modbus which is used by the unit through two channels on the device,” Hollendieck said. He included a 8-gig USB device to ensure extended capture data, two small backup batteries and a battery charger.

“Installation of the PC 550 is easy and intuitive. Programming is simple with a drop-down box selection to find its own devices,” Hollendieck said. The unit at Woodbury County monitors its generator, located outside the building, and eight automatic OTPC switches.

The 911 center, which runs on a mainframe, relies on a 8 kVA UPS backup system to ensure no intermit-tent outages from any power hiccups with transfers from the utility feed to the generator via one of the OTPCs. The other four OTPC switches are located within the Long Lines Data Center.

Since the upgrade, Woodbury County has greatly improved its monitoring and reporting, ensuring the safety of its citizens and CALEA accreditation. “So far the remote monitoring system has worked great,” Sedivy concluded.

For more information about Cummins Power Generation systems, contact your local Cummins Power Generation distributor at power.cummins.com.

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©2013 Cummins Power Generation Inc. All rights reserved. Cummins Power Generation and Cummins are registered trademarks of Cummins Inc. PowerCommand is aregistered trademark of Cummins PowerGeneration. “Our energy working for you.” is a trademark of Cummins Power Generation. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.GLCH-5787 EN (8/13)

The Woodbury County 911 Communications Center provides a single-answering point for processing calls for emergency and non-emergency assistance from police, fire, medical and general service responders.