Case studies
Industrial automation and control case studies from Almafor across Abu Dhabi and the UAE, covering building automation, water SCADA and substation control systems.
Case studies
Buildings and energy
A mosque that fills five times a day, a learning centre with a chiller plant, and an office block that has to prove its consumption to Estidama. Three buildings, three completely different definitions of the word BMS.
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Panel building
A panel that arrives on site half finished turns installation into fabrication, in a building that was never meant to be a workshop. What is inside the door, and why all of it is decided in Mussafah.
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Building Automation
How ALMAFOR designed, built and maintained EMS, ENMS and BMS systems across Abu Dhabi landmarks in the UAE.
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Communications
Fibre costs more on day one than radio or cellular. What it buys is the removal of an entire category of future argument about why the data stopped arriving. What that decision looks like over 17 kilometres of pipeline.
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Substation automation
A substation is not automated when devices start talking to a screen. It is automated when protection, control, monitoring and operator response are engineered as one system, on plant that is never switched off.
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SCADA integration
A pump station does not care that its controller was installed twenty years ago. It still has to start on command. How to bring old controllers into a modern SCADA layer, and when integration stops being the cheaper answer.
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Water & SCADA
A pump station and irrigation SCADA case study covering PLC, RTU, VFD and HMI automation across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, UAE.
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Substation SCMS
Almafor replaced the SCMS across three primary substations at Abu Dhabi Ports' Khalifa Port: new Hitachi Energy hardware and software, about 1 km of fibre and civil works, delivered inside a twelve month contract.
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Substation SCMS
Upgrading TAQA Transmission (TRANSCO) grid stations across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, UAE with redundant BCUs, gateways and LDC/DMS integration.
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Control rooms
A control room is judged at three in the morning by somebody who did not build it. What goes in one, why the operator and engineering positions are separate, and why the alarm list matters more than the screens.
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SCADA and telemetry
A remote terminal unit is the part of a control system that decides whether the control system knows anything at all. What that means in practice, on 17 km of potable water pipeline and five irrigation pumping stations.
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Substation automation
A grid station is not one system. It is dozens of bays, each with its own switchgear, its own interlocks and its own reasons to refuse a command. The bay control unit is what makes that a system instead of a room full of panels.
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Obsolescence and upgrades
Obsolete equipment rarely announces itself. It keeps running. Four tests that settle whether a legacy PLC or drive should be replaced, drawn from a TRANSCO pump station where the drive, the motor, the switchgear and the supply transformer all had to move together.
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Written for whoever is specifying or tendering the work, including where a different kind of supplier is the better answer than us.
By location
Dubai runs different approvals from Abu Dhabi. What changes, what does not, and how an Abu Dhabi contractor works on a Dubai job.
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Guide
Most contractors will tell you they are platform independent. That is easy to say and hard to check. This page names what we have actually installed, down to the module, so you can check it against your own specification.
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What a BMS actually controls, why most of them end up half commissioned, and what to check before you sign.
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By discipline
Form 4 MCCs, VFD and RTU panels, and what to check before placing the order.
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By discipline
Metering, monitoring and the gap between a dashboard and an actual saving.
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Plain answer
You do not want to replace working plant. You want to see it. What that takes, and what it costs you to skip the survey.
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Plain answer
From a float switch to a controlled station you can see from an office. What each step buys you.
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Plain answer
Parks and landscaping spread over kilometres, and a team that cannot be at every valve. What it takes to run it from one place.
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Plain answer
You want to know where the electricity is going. Here is what that actually takes, from a plug-in meter to a full system.
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By location
TAQA and DMT approval routes, live changeovers, and a panel workshop in Mussafah.
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Start here
Four different kinds of business share that phrase. How to tell them apart before the tender goes out.
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By discipline
Who should write the logic, why undocumented code is the real cost, and what to demand at handover.
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Three words that get used interchangeably by people selling them. What each one is, in plain terms.
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Remote sites, unreliable comms and water that has to keep moving. What a specification for this needs to say.
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By discipline
Choosing and installing remote terminal units for sites with no shelter, no mains and no reliable signal.
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By discipline
What an integrator is accountable for that a software house is not, and how to check the claim.
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By situation
Your system still works and the vendor has stopped supporting it. How to decide, and how to change it without stopping the plant.
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By discipline
SCMS, bay control units and IEC 61850, and why the outage plan decides the contract.
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Guide
What a variable frequency drive panel is, what belongs inside one, and the decisions that matter before you order: rating, duty, enclosure, harmonics and testing.
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Plain answer
Nobody will give you a number without a scope. Here is what actually drives the price, so you can build the scope yourself.
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The full form, what a building management system actually controls, how it differs from an energy management system, and real examples from Abu Dhabi buildings.
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The full form, what each part of the system does, and what SCADA looks like on real assets: grid stations, a 17 km water pipeline and municipal irrigation networks.
Read the guide →Tell us about the system you need built, upgraded or kept running.
