Trihedral Engineering Explained

Trihedral Engineering Limited
Type:	Private
Location:	Bedford, Nova Scotia
Products:	Industrial Automation HMI - SCADA - MES Software
Homepage:	www.vtscada.com

Trihedral Engineering Limited (Trihedral) is a Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canadabased creator of industrial automation software. The VTScada SCADA platform is the company's main product.^[1]

Trihedral's has customers in fresh water and wastewater, subsea and terrestrial oil production, air traffic management monitoring systems, fire station and 911 emergency alerting systems, national broadcast networks, marine systems, manufacturing, and food & beverage industries.^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

Trihedral has offices in Nova Scotia, Florida, Alberta, Alabama, California, Michigan, Texas and Scotland.^[6]

VTScada

VTScada is both a Human Machine Interface (HMI), and a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software package. Functionally, VTScada includes real-time monitoring and control, telemetry, alarm and events management, alarm notification, data acquisition, reporting, trending, mapping, application version control, Internet and mobile access.^{[7] [8]}

VTScada communicates with programmable logic controllers (PLCs), Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), pump controllers and other devices using radio, LAN, WAN, cellular, or phone lines. This information is logged and displayed to users on a computer screen via trend graphs, reports, or graphical display pages. The software can also send control signals back to the devices to control the process.

The VTScada software is used by nearly 900 municipalities across the United States, and thousands of industrial customers globally.^{[9] [10]} Notable uses of the software include:

• An estimated one-third of drilled North Sea oil is controlled by VTScada
• The City of Sacramento, California uses VTScada for monitoring and control of its fresh and wastewater infrastructure, with a license that supports up to 500,000 data points^[11]
• Toyota uses VTScada to control its Kentucky assembly plant^[12]
• Shannon Airport in Shannon, Ireland, and Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Halifax, Canada use the software to control their customs systems
• The Miami Dade County, Florida Water and Sewer Department uses VTScada in their stormwater management system, to monitor up to 500,000 data points^[13]

History

Glenn Wadden founded Trihedral in 1986. In 1988, the company released “WEB”; one of the first PC-based SCADA packages that ran on the DOS platform. Trihedral briefly trademarked the term "WEB" in 1990, before the Internet's widespread proliferation.^[14] In 1998, Trihedral Engineering Limited opened a 100% wholly owned subsidiary, Trihedral UK, in Aberdeen, Scotland.^[15] In 1997, WEB became Visual Tag System (VTS) and was updated to run on the Windows operating system. By 2007, Trihedral had developed VTScada, an integrated toolset of telemetry features designed for the water and wastewater industry. The same year, Trihedral, Inc., opened in Orlando, Florida.

Awards

• In 2015, Control Engineering (magazine) was named VTScada winner of the Control Engineering Engineer's Choice award in the HMI Software category.^[16]
• Canada's Top 100 Employers ranked Trihedral among Nova Scotia's Top Employers from 2007 to 2013.^[17]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Trihedral Engineering Limited. 9 January 2012.
2. Web site: VTScada software automates fire station alerting system. 2011-03-10. Automation.com. 2016-08-11.
3. Web site: Utah: Water-Supply SCADA System. Campbell Scientific. 2016-08-11.
4. Web site: Good Scada Makes Good Neighbors. 25 February 2011. Water & Waste Digest. 2016-08-11.
5. Web site: Industries using VTScada. 2016-08-10. Trihedral Engineering Ltd..
6. Web site: About Trihedral – A SCADA Software Vendor. Trihedral Engineering Ltd.. 2016-08-09.
7. Web site: What is VTScada. Trihedral Engineering Ltd.. 2016-08-12.
8. Web site: Integrated SCADA Features. Trihedral Engineering Ltd.. 2016-08-10.
9. Web site: Rise of robots good for Trihedral. The Chronicle Herald. 2016-02-22.
10. Web site: The Evolution of The Internet of Things. Dalhousie University. 2016-08-12.
11. Web site: Agreement: Upgrade of the Department of Utilities Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) System, VTScada (VTS). City of Sacramento. 2015-12-15.
12. Web site: Growth Craft. https://web.archive.org/web/20160821201816/http://www.progressmedia.ca/article/2013/06/growth-craft. dead. 2016-08-21. Tom Mason. Progress Media Magazine. 2013-06-01. 2016-08-09.
13. Web site: Trihedral software License, Maintenance Support and professional services. 2016-09-20. Miami Dade County. 16.
14. Web site: WEB. Trademarkia. 2016-08-09.
15. Web site: Pole position for Aberdeen in Government's 'knowledge economy' strategy Hi-tech park puts a gleam in the North. 1998-09-16. Herald Scotland.
16. Web site: EC: VTScada 11 HMI software. Control Engineering. 2014-10-20.
17. Web site: 2013 Winners. Mediacorp Canada Inc.. 2016-08-09.