Dyersburg, Tennessee Chooses Datamatic To Provide Gas And Electric Automatic Meter Reading System
Plano, TX - The town of Dyersburg, Tenn., has awarded Datamatic a contract to automate its water and natural gas meter reading operations. Under the contract, Datamatic will install a turnkey, mobile AMR system including 9,000 gas and another 9,000 water FIREFLY Meter Interface Units. Datamatic has been a leading utility technology partner since 1980 and supports 500 customers worldwide.
"Utilities like the city owned one in Dyersburg want to increase their efficiency, improve their customer service and better manage their assets," said Datamatic CEO Ken Kercher. "For example, the volatility of the natural gas market requires monitoring usage closely to protect the bottom line. This can be easily accomplished through an advanced AMR solution from Datamatic."
One of the fastest growing communities in Tennessee, Dyersburg is a regional retail, medical, employment and cultural center. More than 300,000 people live in a tri-state area that includes Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri.
"We conducted an extensive pilot program using Datamatic's system for a full year," said Dyersburg Utility Director Mike Morgan. "The FIREFLY system was chosen because it can deliver substantial gains in reading efficiency at a reasonable cost. Datamatic had proven themselves reliable as our handheld meter reading technology partner since 1999. And because FIREFLY MIUs can be retrofitted to our existing meters, we'll save a great deal of money on the initial installation and enjoy flexibility when purchasing meters in the future."
Datamatic's ProfilePLUS datalogging capability was another key reason that Dyersburg selected the company to fulfill its AMR system needs. Each FIREFLY MIU stores hourly usage data. This data is invaluable for settling customer usage disputes, leak detection, system optimization, eliminating inefficient off-cycle reading, as well as right-sizing meters and distribution infrastructure.
Datamatic's AMR system is meter independent, which effectively eliminates the need for meter changeout in an implementation and can save a utility 30-40 percent on the cost of a project. Other FIREFLY models are also available for all popular pulse and encoded output registers, as well as electric and gas meters.
"The ROI for the FIREFLY AMR system can be quite attractive and a typical system can pay for itself in less than six years," added Rich Sanders, Director of Business Development. "While Dyersburg could have installed the system using their own team, they wanted to begin enjoying those benefits as soon as possible. So they tapped Datamatic to expedite the entire installation process, in addition to providing the hardware and software solutions."
Installation of the Datamatic AMR system will begin in late January 2008 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of the summer. Utilities interested in FIREFLY for water meter applications should contact Datamatic vice president of Sales and Marketing Joe Bridges at (972) 234-5000.
SOURCE: Datamatic, Ltd.