BOISE, Idaho—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Dec. 4, 2000—The civil engineering firm J-U-B Engineers, Inc., has reached a three-year agreement with the City of Pocatello, Idaho, to monitor operational parameters for the city's 22 wastewater lift stations.
JUB is implementing a service developed by Insightek, Inc., an Idaho-based technology company specializing in remote resource monitoring systems and services.
The J-U-B/Insightek service will replace sporadic manual inspection of the lift stations with constant, real-time monitoring that can predict major failure long before problems appear.
"In the past we have used systems based on SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) technology," said J-U-B Engineers president Jim Coleman. "The advantage of Insightek's service is that it provides a monitoring approach that can be delivered anytime, anywhere via the Internet, and can provide predictive analysis as well as provide alerts when something goes wrong."
"Other systems lack expert software that creates knowledge via diagnostic analysis and reporting," said Kevin Rowland, vice-president of sales and marketing for Insightek. "With Insightek's technology, not only can past events be followed, but future events can be predicted— preventing expensive down time and repair situations."
First full-scale implementation
The City of Pocatello has been evaluating the Insightek technology on a small scale, test basis. The city was sufficiently impressed with the technology's potential to sign an agreement for full implementation with J-U-B, making it the first full-scale commercial application of the Insightek service.
"We can remotely monitor the lift stations and get a clear indication before we leave the shop as to what potential problems may occur," said Todd McCarroll, a City of Pocatello Water Pollution Control Department technician. "This will allow us to better utilize the time of the department staff."
As a professional services organization on the Idaho Public Works list, J-U-B is pre-qualified for contract with any government agency. J-U-B sees wide spread potential for the Insightek technology.
"I think small and medium-sized cities in particular will benefit enormously from this service," said Coleman. "Any computer can be used for access, and engineers can constantly monitor each lift stations status and use the resulting data for future planning. It will help project the life of the systems more accurately while saving man hours in inspection time for city public works."
About Insightek/J-U-B
Based in Pocatello, Idaho, Insightek develops remote resource management technologies and services for productivity improvement. These services are delivered through the Internet, with applications in water resource management, agriculture and manufacturing. For further information about Insightek, call 208/468-9192, or visit the company's Internet site at www.insightek.com.
J-U-B Engineers, Inc., an Idaho firm founded in 1954, has steadfastly focused on its goal of providing quality civil engineering to clients within and around the Inland Northwest. As a result of dedication to clients' needs, J-U-B has grown to become the largest Idaho-based civil engineering firm.
The staff consists of more than 220 engineers, planners, surveyors, designers, administrators and clerical personnel in 10 offices in Idaho, Washington and Utah.
