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Lower Valley Water
District
Intelligent Mobility
Through the integration of Able
Software�s billing package and Compsee�s
Mobile Application Terminal (MAT) rugged
terminal, Lower Valley Water District is
finally able to experience a complete
utility solution that is efficient,
reliable, scalable, and user friendly.
Lower
Valley Water District (LVWD) is located
in the southeastern portion of El Paso
County, Texas. Created as a municipal
utility district in 1986, it currently
serves around 34,000 customers in
communities of San Elizario, Socorro,
Clint, and Horizon city. The population
of these communities is estimated to
double within the next decade
Situation
With the
rapid growth in the number of
connections Lower Valley Water District
serves, collecting meter reading has
become a large-scale project that takes
a significant amount of manpower and
time. As the size of the meter reading
project grows bigger, it becomes
increasingly important to minimize
errors, and improve the entire data
collection process. Although Lower
Valley Water District has for years
employed an automated meter reading
handheld solution, the capability it
provided was simply limited, inflexible,
and less than reliable. Some specific
problems they experienced are:
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Short battery life. On long routes
the handheld batteries needed to be
changed out.
-
Slow transfer speed between the
handheld and the computer.
-
Slow search speed when the handheld
is handling a large route.
-
A Weak display that is hard to see
under direct sunlight or
insufficient light.
-
Multi-step data import/export
process in relation to the billing
software.
-
Little customization/configuration
options available to improve or
alter the software loaded on the
handheld. Proprietary system
prevented any 3rd party
improvements.
-
Proprietary memory hardware resulted
in higher costs.
Solution
What good
is a handheld solution if it lacks
battery power, reliability, scalability,
speed, ease-of-use, and customizability?
The Compsee Mobile Application Terminal
(MAT) provided the next generation
rugged handheld device Lower Valley
Water District had been searching for
and satisfied the above criteria.
Utilizing the Windows CE.NET framework,
the device is highly reliable and
customizable. Through a seamless
integration with Able Software�s Utility
Star billing system, the entire business
flow for data collection proved to be
highly efficient. Anticipating for
future needs, the device is equipped
with a compact flash and SD/MM card
expansion slot, along with radio, WI-FI,
and Bluetooth connections.
Benefits
Since Lower Valley Water
District�s implementation of the Compsee
MAT into their workforce they have
discovered benefits such as:
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A rugged and reliable
device. (IP 64)
-
Featuring a large and
bright LCD screen, visibility under all
lighting conditions is good. Being able
to see the screen clearly has resulted
in reduced entry errors.
-
High capacity lithium ion
battery (4400mAh) means long operation
time for any route length.
-
Integration with Able
Software�s Utility Star billing system
produced fast and easy data transfers.
The comprehensive End of Transfer Report
enables an easy review of all collected
data.
-
The powerful MAT
processor provides fast data searches
and entry.
-
Customizable reporting
codes enable Utility Star to display a
summary of message for all meters during
data upload.
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Special instructions can
be downloaded from the billing system
and displayed on the MAT handheld.
-
The use of Visual Basic
based software provides fast and
reliable development speed for any
software customization.
-
Clearly audible High/Low
reading alerts.
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Accessible compact flash
and SD/MMC expansion slots make
increasing memory or adding accessories
a snap. Accessories that can be added
through the compact flash expansion slot
include digital camera, GPS, long-range
laser scanner and etc.
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