Download AWS, SYSTEM RELIABILITY AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT

ABSTRACT FORMAT FOR THE 4TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
EXPERIENCES WITH AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS, LISBOA, PORTUGAL
Giancarlo Pedrini: CAE S.p.A., Bologna, Italy: Vice President and Senior Partner:
([email protected] – Tel: +39.051.4992.902)
AWS, SYSTEM RELIABILITY AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Quality Management is defined as a “management system to direct and control an organization
with regard to quality”. When these concepts are used to measure the performance and overall
reliability of a technical system, they become “compliance of a pre-fixed set of rules”, to be
demonstrated through a specific “certification process”.
Coming to hydrometeorology, WMO Amendment 72, Nov 2001, ICAO Annex III /WMO Tech
Regs., establishes –among others - that: “State/Member should ensure that the designated
meteorological Authority establishes and implements a properly organized quality system
comprising procedures, processes and resources necessary to provide for the quality management
of the meteorological information to be supplied to the users.”
The concept we want to develop is that this conception of “Quality Management” – most
frequently reduced to an ISO 9001 Certificate – is not sufficient when applied to a AWS hydrometeorological system, since it seldom responds to the needs of final users, should they be the
National / Regional Hydro-meteorological Offices, the Civil Protection or others. Reason is that,
usually, when committing an Hydro-meteorological monitoring system, formed by a certain number
of AWS, “quality compliance” is asked to the single manufacturer, considering the different
equipments composing the system (AWS, Transmitters, Computers, etc.) as separate elements. No
“quality compliance” is asked as a guarantee for the overall system performance. As a
consequence, no effective “quality management” can be applied over the entire system, and no
guarantee exists that the system itself meets the original requirements and the investment is duly
protected.
A modern AWS hydro-meteorological network (or system), must be regarded as a sort of “living
organism”, a complex integrated system composed by cells (sensors) and organs (stations,
transmission system, repeaters, control centre, software, models, etc..), which must work full-time
as a continuous heavy-duty chain, never to be interrupted. Therefore, it is not valid the assumption
that, if any of the applied elements is properly working, the system itself will properly work. It is a
common experience that this quite seldom happens, especially when such systems are installed and
operated in developing or intermediate technology countries. Furthermore, the best system
performance is expected under the worse possible climatic conditions, and this is exactly the
moment when a not perfectly integrated system collapses, such as a vulnerable organism collapses
under sudden stress conditions, even if all internal organs seems to maintain their working capacity.
This is especially true for Developing Countries, mostly located in the tropical zone, which are
often the most violently stricken by harsh climatic conditions, with thousand of deaths and hundreds
of millions dollars damages. But DCs are also the ones where capacity of effectively manage a
modern hydro-meteorological system is most limited, because of lack of experience (these
technologies are often applied on large scale for first time), lack of trained technicians, inadequate
maintenance capacity, and (mainly), lack of experience in contract and quality management. These
are the key aspects to be taken into account when committing and implementing a modern hydrometeorological system in DCs, if we want to be sure that it will work as expected and will respond
to the purposes for which it is built.
Quality, Performances, Heavy-Duty, Maintenance.