The Challenge
SCADA tools are ubiquitous across the industrial sector, tracking and reporting operations in real time. As Solution Group grew its operations and brought on more clients in the early 2010s, the team sought a SCADA solution for monitoring water quality and how it impacted compliance and costs.
“We explored other companies’ products, but there was nothing off the shelf that was working the way we needed it to,” said Jeff Rohlman, IT Operations at Solution Group. “There were no opportunities to tailor the tech to our needs, and the dashboards were convoluted or missed key features.”
So Solution Group decided to build its own tool: OptiClear.
The Solution
After consulting operators and engineers, Solution Group spent eight months developing a proprietary monitoring and reporting application that could record water quality and act as a control center for industrial wastewater operations. OptiClear is an application available via mobile and desktop that collects real-time data, monitors flows and loads, and offers the unique ability to view live video feeds for water output monitoring.
The data collected is translated into dashboards built for individual client needs. Alarms can be integrated when suboptimal conditions are detected, prompting reliable, actionable alerts via email and text for immediate intervention. The OptiClear application showcases real-time data and features a built-in reporting tool that allows for historic trending and tracking. Clients can easily create reports with flexible data selection for custom needs. The overall goal of the application is to streamline operations and aggregate data, from individual site-levels to overall lab reporting, creating a one-stop shop for monitoring and visibility.
To test OptiClear’s effectiveness, Solution Group rolled out the beta version to one of its clients at no cost.
OptiClear in Action
A Midwest food processing plant based in Missouri was plagued with inefficiencies, from excessive pollutants in water output to compliance issues, which led to massive surcharges of over $100,000 per month. Additionally, the plant was struggling with proper dosages of water chemicals – many times, too much or too little of a chemical would be added, and plant managers would not have access to reliable data to accurately predict the correct dosage.
The site implemented OptiClear’s beta version and was able to test the platform at no charge while Solution Group monitored and made system improvements. In just three months, this plant saw a complete turnaround in compliance and water quality. With OptiClear, the plant managers had real-time data they could analyze and track, establishing patterns and creating data-backed dosing schedules for precise conditions.
Regulatory agencies were impressed with the proactiveness the platform created. Instead of waiting for data to load or manually pulling quality reports, these wastewater professionals had everything they needed for quick, secure reporting and management, saving money on surcharges and compliance fines that once overwhelmed the business, as well as $10,000 per month in chemical spend with proper dosing.
The Missouri plant remains a Solution Group customer. In fact, many sites that use OptiClear have a high retention rate with Solution Group – once OptiClear is installed, it rarely gets removed.
The Results
OptiClear is differentiated from similar tools by three factors:
- The platform was created specifically for the industrial wastewater treatment industry, unlike other generalized solutions.
- The solution ties processes, compliance, and cost together in one platform, eliminating the need for additional tools and spreadsheets.
- OptiClear is a “living” platform, meaning OptiClear engineers can upgrade processes, add or remove features based on user feedback, and release updates when it makes sense for their clients.
Most importantly, OptiClear empowers strong relationships between Solution Group and its clients, where a true partnership is built on feedback and improvement. User feedback is how Solution Group continues to refine and improve OptiClear, rolling out multiple updates per year to incorporate insights gained directly from clients.
“OptiClear, our proprietary performance platform, transforms how we serve our customers by delivering real‑time risk intelligence and complete visibility into every system and every team,” said Tim Batterson, President of Solution Group. “By empowering our experts to support any facility instantly, we resolve issues faster, uphold consistent quality, and anticipate challenges before they become disruptions. The result is unmatched reliability, elevated service performance, and a deeper, more resilient partnership with every customer we serve.”
OptiClear was created with insights from IT experts and innovators who have seen the long-standing problems in the industry and, in turn, created a solution specifically designed to combat issues in the wastewater industry.
# # #