The HJocky database
program was written to facilitate the creation of various state compliance
reports and all the myriad internal historical data reports that are
required to properly operate a waste water plant. It was created to provide
an inexpensive option to small and medium sized plants to a full blown SCADA
system or more extensive (and expensive) programs on the market. It
leverages the considerable resources of Microsoft Office (mainly Access and
Excel) to provide a very useful and easy to use program that is capable of
doing everything any size wastewater plant is required to do for
compliance reporting, and probably every kind of parameter tracking and
historical trending and analysis that any small to medium sized plant would
wish to do.
In consultation with Kenny Fail,
chief hockyjocky, the programming staff of HPT Designs (i.e. Tommy
Armstrong) has created a "kewl"* program that allows the hockyjocky to keep
up with practically everything going on in his plant. It allows for the
creation of just about any kind of parameter that one needs to track in
order to properly operate the turd track. Once the parameter is created,
the program then will allow the user to create simple input forms into which
the data can be entered. These forms can be adapted to existing bench sheets
to enable ease of entry, or one can use the forms to create new bench
sheets. EPA compliance data can be inputted and with a few clicks of a
button a State (North Carolina) compliance (DMR) form can be created and
printed. Upstream-Downstream and Influent compliance forms can also be
created from pre-approved templates. Forms for other states can and will be
created upon request. Even for plants with many parameters, all data and
state forms should be able to be inputted and created in less than an hour
with all calculations done.
Just the creation of the state forms is very useful and well worth
the cost of the program, but the application also allows one to view
historical data just about any way one desires. By creating customized query
forms, one can easily mine the data and export the subset to an Excel
spreadsheet. Since many are well acquainted with Excel, it was decided that
it would be the best reporting vehicle. After the desired data is extracted
from the database, it is then exported into an Excel spreadsheet then
automatically charts the data in variety of formats. A link to this sheet is
automatically saved in the HJocky Application so that it can be retrieved
easily. Modifications can then be made to the spreadsheet by the user to
meet his needs.
Also included are many useful functions that can use the historical data
as their sources, For example one could calculate the Sludge Age, MCRT,
detention time, etc for a certain period of time. A built in calculator
wizard also allows one the input current or hypothetical data to see the
results.
The HJocky Application is written in Microsoft Access and Excel, and the
requirements are that you must have Microsoft Office Professional
(97,2000,or XP) installed on the machine. It is desirable that if one is in
a networked environment, to install the database containing the actual data
onto the server and the application on the client computer. On a standalone
PC, the application, the data, and all the reports reside in one folder (and
subfolders), so that a simple copy of the parent folder will ensure that all
data and reports can be backed up with a simple copy and paste.
Since every plant is different, I have tried to create a program that is
readily adaptable to the many types and processes that are encountered in
wastewater plants. But because of the variety of requirements, there is
some need for some custom programming. Each NPDES permit is somewhat
different and must have a customized template. The cost of creating the
fields that hold the compliance data and the form template is included in
the cost of the program.
