PLANO, TEXAS, April 8, 2003 -- Datamatic, Ltd., has been awarded a US $10 million contract by the Las Vegas Valley Water District to supply and install approximately 106,000 additional FIREFLY® Meter Interface Units as phase two of a comprehensive automatic meter reading deployment.
This phase includes completing a migration to the Datamatic RouteSTAR® MVP system to read the district's 300,000 meters. A supplier of enterprise meter reading solutions, Datamatic has served utilities worldwide since 1977.
"LVVWD has recognized that AMR systems are far more than tools for reducing meter reading costs," stated Datamatic President and CEO Ken Kercher. "FIREFLY provides the ability to improve a utility's customer service while enhancing productivity and efficiency. This is especially important in an area such as Las Vegas, which is experiencing a population explosion while also wrestling with limited water supplies."
Founded in 1954, the Las Vegas Valley Water District (www.lvvwd.com) provides water to nearly 300,000 homes and businesses in Southern Nevada. The District is a member of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, formed to manage the region's water resources and develop solutions that will ensure adequate future water supplies for the Las Vegas Valley.
The District began integrating Datamatic's system, including the FIREFLY MIU, ROADRUNNER mobile AMR receiver and RouteSTAR MVP route management software, during phase one of their AMR deployment in 2001.
"Water management is the single most important issue facing our growing desert community," said Mike Kebles, Las Vegas Valley Meter Services Manager. "We must account for every drop and manage it wisely. In addition to greatly reducing our meter reading costs, an AMR system will help us track our water, better manage conservation programs, enhance customer service and optimize our infrastructure."
The Las Vegas Valley Water District has five different brands of water meters currently in use across a large geographic area. Datamatic's FIREFLY system can be easily adapted to almost any meter in the world. This flexibility allows the LVVWD to install FIREFLY on current meters and prevents the District from being limited to a specific meter brand for future deployment. All FIREFLY MIU's archive consumption data at user-definable intervals using a feature called ProfilePLUS(tm). When set to record hourly readings, each water FIREFLY can hold over 74 days of hourly consumption data.
"We're under enormous pressure to manage water and upgrade our customer service capabilities as we continue our spectacular growth," added Kebles. "With an advanced AMR system, we'll be able to fulfill that mission without costly flow monitors or fixed network infrastructure. When the deployment is completed, we'll be able to access detailed account data from every equipped meter."
Installation of the 106,000 FIREFLY units should be completed over the next twelve months.
About Datamatic, Ltd.
Datamatic is a provider in utility meter reading automation. Datamatic is active in the design, implementation and support of advanced utility meter reading and field data collection solutions for water, gas and electric utilities. Additional information about Datamatic is available on the web at www.datamatic.com.
