In the field of industrial automation and critical infrastructure, longevity and technical reliability are the primary benchmarks of success. Lee-Dickens Ltd., a firm with over 60 years of expertise in industrial electronics and process instrumentation, was recently honoured at the annual SCADAFest with the VTScada Legend Award. This accolade recognises three decades of continuous partnership between Lee-Dickens and Trihedral, the developers of the VTScada software platform.
The award serves as a formal acknowledgement of the technical integration and deployment of high-integrity SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems across demanding industrial sectors. Since the inception of the partnership 30 years ago, Lee-Dickens has utilised this software foundation within its wider monitoring architecture, ensuring that critical assets: ranging from military navigation aids to regional water management systems: remain operational under rigorous conditions.
A Legacy of Engineering Excellence
Established in 1962, Lee-Dickens Ltd. has maintained a consistent focus on the design and manufacture of high-reliability instrumentation. The company's trajectory from producing rugged signal conditioning modules to providing comprehensive, cloud-based telemetry services reflects the broader evolution of the industrial landscape.
Within that progression, Sitewatch Anywhere has become the primary delivery platform for remote monitoring and control, with water management and silo monitoring representing the principal areas of deployment. The same engineering approach is also applied across gas installations and several other industrial sectors where dependable telemetry, alarming, and remote asset visibility are required. The underlying software layer provides a stable and resilient environment for complex data acquisition, while the Sitewatch service model remains the principal customer-facing solution. Over the course of 30 years, this alliance has supported monitoring systems that prioritise data integrity and system uptime. The "Legend Award" therefore marks not merely the passage of time, but the successful execution of high-level engineering projects requiring long-term support and technical continuity.
Technical Application: Water Management and Drainage Infrastructure
One of the most significant applications of the Lee-Dickens partnership is found within the water management sector, specifically concerning Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) and flood risk authorities. These organisations require precise, real-time data to manage water levels across vast geographical areas, often in remote or environmentally sensitive locations.
The technical challenge in these environments involves the synchronisation of field hardware: such as level sensors and pump status information: with remote telemetry units (RTUs). These systems must support continuous live updates at pumping stations, while solar-powered remote sites can be configured to back off to 15-minute reporting intervals where power budget and site conditions require it.
Case Study: Flood Risk Mitigation
In a typical deployment, the Sitewatch Anywhere platform receives data from the telemetry stations over secure and robust private links, including from solar-powered remote telemetry stations. This data is then visualised on centralised dashboards, allowing for the remote management of pumps and sluice gates.
- The Problem: Managing a drainage network with a 100,000 m³ void capacity requires instantaneous visibility of all assets. Manual monitoring is logistically impractical and presents a significant risk during high-precipitation events.
- The Solution: Implementation of a decentralised telemetry network using the Sitewatch RTU, a modular field device that can be adapted to increase I/O capability as station demands change. These units provide a unified view of the entire drainage basin through Sitewatch Anywhere.
- The Benefit: Transitioning from reactive to proactive maintenance. Operators receive automated alerts when thresholds are breached, enabling the activation of secondary pump systems before critical capacity is reached.
"The partnership with Trihedral has allowed us to focus on the human and operational outcomes of our technology. By utilising the underlying software platform as a reliable core, we can concentrate on the bespoke engineering of our systems, ensuring that the people responsible for critical infrastructure have the most reliable data at their fingertips. It is about placing the industry's needs first, with the technology serving as the silent, reliable enabler." : Andy Needham, Director of Engineering, Lee-Dickens Ltd.
For industries such as logistics, food production, and silo management, the ability to monitor tank levels or pressure gradients in real-time is essential for safety and regulatory compliance. In silo applications in particular, the primary operational benefit is real-time inventory visibility. This enables refill schedules to be planned before stock is exhausted, ensuring that the silo does not run empty, while also confirming that sufficient ullage is available before a road tanker is dispatched with a full load. The Sitewatch platform therefore supports both continuity of supply and more disciplined delivery logistics, in addition to providing historical trending and predictive analytics for optimised replenishment cycles and reduced operational downtime.
High-End RCMS Applications in Aviation and Defence
A further area of technical significance is the deployment of the Lee-Dickens Remote Control and Monitoring System (RCMS) at international airports and military airfields. These installations represent a high-end application environment in which reliability, presentation quality, alarm discipline, and integration integrity are subject to particularly close scrutiny. In such settings, remote monitoring is not merely a utility function; it forms part of the operational infrastructure supporting airfield systems and associated assets where service continuity and rapid fault visibility are essential.
The engineering value of these RCMS deployments lies in their ability to consolidate distributed field information into a robust supervisory environment that provides operators with immediate status awareness and dependable control pathways. For customers, this type of application carries additional strategic importance. The successful delivery of systems into international airport and military airfield environments provides visible evidence of engineering credibility, and gives end users confidence that the same design standards, hardware integrity, and software discipline can be relied upon across other critical infrastructure sectors.
Trial Success and Continued Product Rollout
The "Legend Award" also marks the success of recent trials in urban flood monitoring, where bespoke telemetry units were integrated into residential culverts to provide automated warnings to local authorities. The success of these trials has led to a wider rollout of the Sitewatch Anywhere service, with the strongest emphasis on water and silo monitoring, while further deployments continue across gas applications and other specialist sectors.
As Lee-Dickens enters its seventh decade of operation, the focus remains on high-integrity systems. The 30-year relationship with Trihedral provides a stable software foundation for future innovations in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and remote asset management, but the operational emphasis remains firmly on Sitewatch as the primary solution for field telemetry, visibility, and control. This award recognition therefore sits within a broader engineering heritage defined by long service life, dependable field performance, and the disciplined integration of software, instrumentation, and telemetry into systems that remain operational in demanding environments. It also reflects the same reliability demonstrated in recent work with Internal Drainage Boards, as outlined in Monitoring the Unreachable.
Technical Summary and Services
Lee-Dickens Ltd. continues to provide comprehensive solutions for industrial and military organisations requiring high-reliability monitoring and control. Our core competencies include:
- Process Instrumentation: Design and manufacture of sensors, probes, and DIN-rail signal conditioning modules.
- Telemetry & SCADA Systems: Deployment of the Sitewatch Anywhere service for real-time remote monitoring and automated control.
- Contract Electronics Manufacture: Bespoke equipment design and prototyping tailored to specific military and industrial specifications.
- System Maintenance: Long-term support and maintenance contracts to ensure the continued integrity of critical infrastructure assets.
With over 60 years of engineering heritage and a 30-year partnership with a leading SCADA software provider, Lee-Dickens remains at the forefront of technical excellence in process monitoring. For more information on how our integrated SCADA and telemetry solutions can enhance your operational efficiency, visit www.lee-dickens.co.uk.
Leave a Reply