A SCADA system gathers information, such as where a leak on a pipeline has occurred, transfers the information back to a central site, alerting the home station that the leak has occurred, carrying out necessary analysis and control, such as determining if the leak is critical, and displaying the information in a logical and organized fashion. SCADA systems can be relatively simple, such as one that monitors environmental conditions of a small office building, or incredibly complex, such as a system that monitors all the activity in a nuclear power plant or the activity of a municipal water system.

· An engineer's introduction to Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and their application in monitoring and controlling equipment and industrial plant
· Essential reading for data acquisition and control professionals in plant engineering, manufacturing, telecommunications, water and waste control, energy, oil and gas refining and transportation
· Provides the knowledge to analyse, specify and debug SCADA systems, covering the fundamentals of hardware, software and the communications systems that connect SCADA operator stations