Recent world events such as the London bombings have brought the security threat to the forefront of all our minds, and ongoing fuel price increases (in the UK wehave seen an increase of 28% since we were setting of fireworks and bringing in the new millennium) are increasing the need for remote monitoring solutions.

Living where Ido on an overpopulated island where the primary mode of transport is by road, and where our customers are all demanding lower costs and improved levels of service the need is further enhanced.

The million dollar question is how do you reduce yourcosts and improve the level of service while the main cost associated to many businesses is so far ahead of inflation?

Telemetry (or Remote Monitoring, or M2M, or Telematics, or Machine2Man, Man2Machine, Machine2Machine ) can be used for too many applications to mention here, but vehicle and mobile asset tracking, storage tank level monitoring, remote meterreading, pump condition monitoring, vending machine monitoring all have one thing in common and that is reducing costs.

The technology is now sufficiently proven, the mobile network operators have now embraced the solution and the cost of thesolutions have fallen dramatically over the years opening most if not all of these applications.

Using telemetry can seriously help your business - know where things are, how things are, be the first to react to a potential problem, know what hascaused the problem before you set off on a long journey, get more from your operatives and your assets.

The key requirements for success are reliability, affordability and the upgradeability and this requires an understanding of the complete solution.

Thought also needs to be given as to how the sensors are to be powered and how they will interface to the telemetry device (or remote telemetry unit - RTU).

You can have too many alarms so it's a good idea to select anRTU that has a certain amount of intelligence and can send alarms if certain conditions occur or if the alarm is active for a preset period of time.

With the GSM network you can a number of ways to transfer your data as well - GPRS, Data call as well as SMS and the more sophisticateddevices will use all three of these depending on availability with the network.

Web based data presentation (or internet telemetry) is rising in popularity as the communications links, the backup, the system upgrades, pretty much everything is handled by others.

Telemetry system integrators do this for a living, they know how to manage the data, the pitfalls in communication links and how to work with the cellular operators.

I don't just say this cause I work for an end to end solution provider (www.in4ma.co.uk) but because I've lived through the problems, I've lostbusiness because of if it and know for a fact it not only saves you time but also money.

Rats chew it, farmers put fence posts through them, utilities dig them to monitor something on someone elses site you are reliant upon interaction from the client and the use of their exchange.

Powelectrics have beenproviding data communication solutions for many years and have seen the advances in wireless based telemetry at first hand.

The utilities have pioneered the conversion to radio after successive privatisation has lead to staffing reductions, which inevitably has left many sites unmanned.

The water boards in particular have many sites which are tooremote to use a telephone network effectively so the best solution has been to employ radio equipment to monitor process signals and relay values to central controls sites.

Confidence has grown to the extent that engineers now rely on radio communications to monitor effluent systems onpharmaceutical plants and offshore installations.

Crucially however, to qualify for de-licensed frequencies the power output of each radio has to remain low,which means that 'low-power' radio has an effective range of approximately 20km.

For local control systems this method of data acquisition offers many advantages but it is now possible to 'buy' your own frequency and transmit over greaterdistances, but the boundary for process monitoring applications is still fixed at about 60km.

Further flexibilty is coming about with new techniques with cell based short ranged radio - data can hop from one node to another in a framework, abit like data can get passed from one server to another on the internet.

OK, if you roll out nits in the hundreds and thousands you can exect the odd hiccup, and in the early days there will be a learning curve when it goes horribly wrong.

There are allsorts of phrases used to describe suppliers, a few of which I can't bring myself to type, but the ones thatintegrate the solution, that can supply the sensors as well as the telemetry device and that have the capability to help you out on site are the ones I'd recommend.

If you're using the mobile phone network you'll need to make sure the signal is good for sure, but you'll also need to make sure the sim card is the righttype and allsorts of other stuff.

Save yourself the bother and use the equipment supplier to take the responsibility and give you an end to end solution for your M2M application.

It's not just the affordability that affected by reliability, butalso the credability For remote monitoring and telemetry to work people need to have confidence, and that means the system needs to work.

Telemetry is becoming more and more affordable and more and more reliable, opening up many new applicationsthat just 2 or 3 years ago would have seemed impossible.

I've been doing allsorts of cost benefit analysis on some applications recently and for VMI and tank level monitoring we are finding that the kit pays for itself inside 4 months.

Thisis only going to get quicker as the costs involved with transportation increase and with the lifetime of the telemetry device well in excess of 5 years the return on investment is beyond comprehension.

It's all well and good me sitting here writing about the wonders oftelemetry, telling you to go wireless and web enabled, saying that you should find an end to end solution provider etc etc., but what benefits does it actually give to your business and to your customers business.

Does your sales team need that little bit extra to offer to the client in order to secure their business and if you could do that would you be able to tie the customer into alonger contract term?

In return your customer gets more efficient deliveries (they normally have to provide access etc.), as well as increased confidence knowing that they will never run out of product.

Your customer becomes a mere bystander,you are reactive to situations that the telemetry is telling you about and everyone works better, sleeps better and saves money and the telemetry does all the hard work.

You customer no longers has to get wrapped up to trek out to the tank and takea dip reading, risking life and limb balancing on top of a tank in a howling gale.

Your customer is losing money as production has stopped and you losemoney as you've had to drop everything else and serve this one issue, setting a tanker off on a special journey that probably costs more than you make.

Jump on the internet, log on to the secure site andselect the tank in question, enter a date range and hey presto - a graph showing the tank level.

I'm sure there are those who will disagree with me, mainly the telephonecompanies who provide pstn lines and the telemetry equipment manufacturers who are still struggling with the changes they need to make to embrace the mobile phone (GSM) network, but in my mind there is no reason to even dwell upon thedecision.

Chances are that you are fitting telemetry onto a customers site, whether it be domestic or industrial, so you either get a new phone line installed or you piggy back onto the exisitng one.

Your company have just negotiated a new 12month supply contract to a client and you need to get the remote monitoring system installed quickly - you call the telephone company who drag their feet and scratch their heads before coming up with a high price to fit the line cause the place where youwant it a bit out of the way.

Alternatively you piggy back onto the existing phone network, struggle with how to get modem ABC communicating through switchboard XYZ, and then just as things are going well someone unplugs the telemetry cause theydon't know what it is and your engineers have to make a trip to site etc.

You need to get into the home to find faults in the future (and you can bet your bottom dollar that the homeowner has unpluggedyour telemetry as they wanted to plug in the fax or something along those lines).

Surely it would be easier if you could just roll up at the same time as delivering, screw something to the top of the tank, press a few buttons to check all was welland they you're away.

This goes back to one of my earlier blogs - use an end to end solution provider whotakes responsibility for the sensor, the telemetry outstation, the sim card, the communications, the web based data presentation, the lot.

If you use a telephone line the telemetry provider has a get out clause - they can blast you with science andblame the phone company if things aren't working.

One of the biggest questions I get asked by someone who is trying to implement a gsmtelemetry solution is 'can I use pay as you go sim cards?' I give out my standard reply which is 'yes, you probably can but don't come crying to me when your system doesn't work.

They aren't data enabled, or they have a pin code lock, or they run out of credit and they can't work outhow to get them topped up, or they get deregistered from the network.

Using your own sim cards can be fine, but then someone in your organisationdoes a global change on the sim contract and all of a sudden no telemetry.

Take an end to end approach, and that means get someone who knows what they are doing, use an end to end solution provider, to provide the hardware, the sim cards, host the data, program the kit foryou.

As remote data acquistion systems and the hardware for GSM based SCADA systems become more cost effective we are seeingparallel developments in the way data is collected and presented and the clever money is on the web based data acquisition systems.

The wonders of GPRS are making data transfer affordable and you can monitor something on the other side of the worldin near real time - you can pretty much see a vehicle drive around the country on the web.

To 'roll out' a new bit of software to the relevant users is no simple task so if all you need do is point your browser somewhereand have your data at your fingertips (safe in the knowledge that it's secure behind usernames and passwords) then what could be better?

The systems weprovide allow you to auto log on to the server a 'pull' the data so it can then be imported into your business systems and automatically handled from there.

Watch out for too much data! You can have too much information - try and use a telemetryunit that can record information intelligently (perhaps when only the machine is running or just during working hours).

You can make thetelemetry system be proactive - send you an email to say that the bulk storage tank is nearly empty so please arrange a delivery, or the machine is broken so please come and fix it.

Over time we have seen the cost of transporting product in bulk increase as the cost of fuel goes up, the cost if dirvers, insurance, the working time directive, the increased congestion on the roadsetc etc.

At the same time we have seen the cost of telemetry come down which is making the solutions viable even when the number of deliveries each month or even year are minimal.

Added on to the reduced cost of transportation are theincreased benefits to your customer - they no longer have to walk out the tank and take a reading and they hve the added assurance that if they forget to take a reading and reorder that you are there montoring things and telling them what theyneed.

This saves having to arrange a delivery in a panic, you can start to schedule things to suit your logisitics and your manufacturing and save even more money.

The world of GSMTelemetry has come on leaps and bounds in recent yours, reliability has improved and other application areas have latched onto it so there has been some decent investment in the technology and the economies of scale have kicked n.

One example is ondiesel driven pumps which are used on sewage works as emergency replacements or when major work is being undertake, on sewer diversion projects as well on ground water clearance applications on building sites.

This means the engines could be running even when they aren't actually pumping anything which increases fuel costs significantly as well as adding to the hours run onthe engine and therefore increasing the servicing requirements significantly.

Typically these engines need servicing every 200 hours, so an engine left to run for less than 10 days will need a service over 35 times a year! Having plant runningunattended in remote locations can lead to service and operational issues.

How do you know of the engine has stopped running because of a low oil pressure failure, or how do you now that the engine needs a service, and what are theimplications?

One solution designed and developed by Powelectrics takes away these worries whilst helping the user save money and uses the GSM mobile phone network as the means of communication.

The auto-start and telemetry device not onlycontrols when the engine will run but will also send messages by sms (a mobile phone text message) and email advising you of a problem.

The system can stilloperate in manual, where the user can start and stop the engine by the turn of a key, the system can be put into automatic mode and starts if the high level is reached.

All thetime the engine is running hours run is monitored and advises the owner when a service is due as well as sending text message alarms if there is an oil pressure or an engine temperature problem.

We can easily configure the device to run for a minimum period to prevent this, or even to monitor the battery voltage and run the engine to bring thebattery level back up to a minimum level.

Parameters may change as well as mobile phone numbers - instead of a service engineer having to drive to site thesechanges can now be made from the warmth and comfort of the office.

Text messaging is great moving around the world - we at www.in4ma.co.uk quite happily use UK based sim cards, configure the units and send them off to te required country and they work quitehappily.

With gPRS it's not so easy - settings changed, you have to deal with dynamic IP addresses, roaming sim cards decide they'd prefer to work on a network that doesn't support GPRS so you have to get a techie to the relevant country and sortit all out.

You can have too much information - try and use a telemetry unit that can record information intelligently (perhaps when only the machine is runningor just during working hours).

You can make the telemetry system be proactive - send you an email to say that the bulk storage tank is nearlyempty so please arrange a delivery, or the machine is broken so please come and fix it.

It's always on (well, with GPRS it's on when you wantit to be) and is faster (not quite the speeds you see from ADSL but that's an airwaves versus copper/fibre issue).

Some networks don't let you have a public IP address so you've got to report in rather than request data (essentially it becomes aone way communications initiation system) and most don't (or can't?) give you a static IP address.

Our organisation have been supplying telemetry and remote monitoring solutions for many years and I havealways been a great advocate of keeping things simple and making system easy to use.

The electronic engineers seem to take a different view, and this isn't just at Powelectrics but anywhere, that the solutions need to be a little bit complicated toconfigure etc.

I'm pleased to say that we now have a product (The IN4MA Metron) which is really easy to use, really easy to configure and the applications it is suited to are plentiful.

It is the kind of product you can pop in a box, send itto countries far and wide and know that the user can have a quick read of the manual and away they go.

With it being battery powered installation is really easy - none of this getting a permit to work of circuits or anything like that, just stickit on the wall, wire in your sensors and you're off.

The ease of use makes the installation and operating cost reduce, the simplicity makes it so pretty much anyone can have affordable remote monitoring without having to learn scripting languages,C++ or anything like that - my mum could almost set one up.

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