SM 2.0 Metering Utilities Integration: Water

Utilities across the country understand that their missions now extend beyond the normal services provision. Instead their missions are centered on improving the quality of life of their consumers. They support this improvement through their provisions for economic growth and the creation of opportunities for their consumers. However, no one entity can support this task alone. It is imperative in today’s environment that we consider and act on creating strong partnerships on a regional basis that leverage our assets , expertise and financial resources. Partnerships amongst communication (Internet provision), water, gas and electric utilities in particular are the base needs of this expansion.

Every utility has four main focuses: providing their service, metering the consumer’s service usage, processing that usage data and billing and collecting for the said services. It is known that providing the service will be different for every type of utility but the other areas are duplicated amongst the various organizations. Therefore, economies of scale can be experienced by building partnerships that leverage the current assets and abilities of each organization. Most effectively these assets and abilities must support an integrated metering, data processing, billing, inventory and work order processing environment.