Integrating AMI and MDM: A Worthwhile Venture?

As more and more water utilities migrate from automatic meter reading (AMR) technology to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technology—or go directly to AMI—the opportunity to also introduce a meter data management (MDM) system presents itself.

Trends
First, though, let’s look at the trends in this area. How common is it for water utilities to integrate AMI and MDM? “More and more water utilities, in the US and globally, are integrating data management into their operational processes to maximize the benefits of AMI,” says Brian Crow, vice president of analytic solutions for Sensus. “Utilities receive endless amounts of information from their infrastructure, but without a solid data management plan, the data is just that—data. In order to truly tap into the power of AMI, utilities must plan to integrate data management into their businesses.”

Joe Ball, Itron’s North America director of marketing for water, agrees. “We absolutely see an increase in the integration of MDM and AMI in the water industry,” he says. “It wasn’t very common in the days of AMR, but it is definitely becoming more common in the AMI days.” Electric utilities have been using MDM for a while, but water utilities don’t have the same requirements for MDM that electric utilities do. However, according to Ball, the value of MDM for water utilities is the ability to create long-term data storage and then access this data for analytics.

Dale Pennington, managing director of Baton Rouge, LA-based Utiliworks Consulting, has found that some larger water utilities, primarily those with 15,000 or 20,000 meters and above, and which also have full-time IT staff, are more likely to introduce full-blown MDM systems with their AMI systems. “These MDM systems are more complex, but in our view, they are absolutely a requirement for these utilities in order for them to properly partition and utilize the data with all of the different AMI applications that exist,” he says. “In fact, we wouldn’t even consider working on an AMI project with a large utility without an MDM system being provided for. You just can’t manage the data without an MDM system.”

What about smaller water utilities? Pennington has found that some smaller water utilities are introducing what he calls an “MDM-lite” system, which doesn’t have all of the details and complexities, but can still provide some useful information.

Problems From Lack of MDM
According to many in the industry, failing to integrate an MDM system with an AMI system can cause problems for water utilities. “If utilities do not integrate data management, they will struggle to realize the business value of their data and AMI deployment,” says Sensus’s Crow. Data management infrastructure supports long-term analytics, real-time operations, and system benchmarking. If this data is not integrated with AMI, the quality of results from these processes is at risk. This makes it difficult for utilities to determine what is important and where they should take action. “By integrating data management, utilities get a holistic view of their businesses and ensure that the data is there for future analysis,” he says.

Itron’s Ball agrees. “Without this integration, AMI systems do not have long-term data storage for the raw data,” he says. “Rather, they interface with the billing system, and this is where the data would end up. As a result, any historical analysis will be based just on billing data.” In sum, according to Ball, the decision not to integrate MDM and AMI really limits the value they could get from AMI.

Benefits of Integrating MDM With AMI
“By integrating AMI and data management, at least with the Itron system, you can put time-synchronized interval data from the AMI system into storage and use it for analytics,” says Ball. This shows the exact time of day that consumption, tampering, or other meter alerts happen. You can then go back and “slice and dice” that data to be able to learn more. “For example, you can identify, in granular detail, when demand for water is highest, and what kinds of customers are driving that demand, which allows you to make better decisions as to when you want to pump more water,” he says. You can also use the information immediately. For example, you can identify a customer-side leak and then make proactive contact with that customer.

Integration Challenges
While there can be multiple benefits to integrating MDM with AMI, it is not an easy process. “The rate of innovation is not slowing down,” says Sensus’s Crow. “In the future, sensor technology will transmit more data faster, making data management processes a key part of any utility investment. The key challenge for water utilities is to predict what their needs may be down the road, so that they can choose the right technology platform.” It is critical to determine what data elements are important today and for the future, so that data is not lost over time.

According to Utiliworks Consulting’s Pennington, it is much easier for a water utility to implement an MDM system at the same time as it implements an AMI system, because the two systems together really change the way that the utility captures and manages data. As a result, the utility only needs to transition from an old system to a new system once. “If a utility introduces AMI and then adds MDM later on, it requires quite a bit of restructuring and partitioning of the data, which can be quite problematic,” he says.

Keys to Success
If a utility procures its AMI and MDM systems from different vendors, it will be difficult to integrate the two systems. “However, if you procure them from the same vendor, which has existing integrations with the two systems, it makes the implementation a lot easier,” says Itron’s Ball.

“The most important part of a successful integration is not to do it alone,” says Sensus’s Crow. “Select a technology partner who can manage your AMI, data management, and analytics solutions. This will truly maximize the value of your investment.”

Crow also recommends starting slow and small. “Find ways to showcase the value of data management to your business in the short-term,” he says. “Showing meaningful results to your stakeholders will demonstrate why data management is an important step for the future.”

“When we work with water utilities, we will set up the AMI and MDM systems and make sure all of the processes flow properly, and that the education takes place in all of the departments to make sure everyone understands how to utilize the system and understands what the data can do,” says Utiliworks Consulting’s Pennington. “For example, with an MDM system, you can do daily revenue streaming, so that the finance guy knows how much water was sold and how much money they collected that day. The data can then be sent to the guys on the hydraulic modeling team, so they can see what the actual flows were through the pipes compared to what they were engineered for. The data can also be sent to the pressure guys, so they can see what the drawdown effects are, and maybe they can pump at different times of the day in order to save money.” In addition, according to Pennington, if you have customers on “balanced billing,” you can send them a notice if they are using more water than expected. In sum, the integration of AMI and MDM is not just a “meter to cash” process. It is really a “meter to asset management” process.

But Maybe MDM Is Not For Everyone
While there are a lot of people in the industry who strongly encourage the integration of MDM and AMI, there is at least one company that suggests water utilities take a second look at the concept. “One drawback to implementing an MDM system is that it adds a lot more complexity to an already complex AMI process,” says John Sala, director of marketing for Neptune Technology Group. “In addition, it is extremely expensive to implement.”

Beyond that, according to Sala, the vast majority of water utilities don’t even need MDM systems if they already have good AMI systems in place. “The MDM system is really an information storage location,” he says. “It cannot have any more information related to metering and consumption than the AMI system itself gathers.” That is, MDM is not more than the sum of the AMI parts.

However, agrees Sala, there can be some value-adds from MDM, in that it may add other intelligence that can help to support the AMI data, such as certain accounting information, allowing the opportunity to make more intelligent analysis.

“MDM originally came into existence in the electric utility industry, and the reason it did so is that some large utilities had several different AMI systems, spread out over large numbers of customers and territories,” says Sala. “The MDM system was important for them, because it served as the central clearinghouse for all of the data from the various AMI systems. However, if you only have one AMI system, you may not even need an MDM system, again, because the MDM is not more than the sum of the AMI parts.”

According to Sala, most AMI systems that are in place in water utilities have enough information available on them that MDM systems are not really necessary. For example, good AMI systems already have built-in reporting, general analysis, event analysis, alarming, etc. “In other words, most major AMI systems have a lot of the MDM functions already built into them,” says Sala. “Our AMI system, for example, automatically maintains two years of data, which allows a lot of different types of analyses to be done, such as customer reporting, data analytics, and mapping. As such, in a way, we are already providing a basic MDM system within the AMI system that we offer.”

In addition, according to Sala, it often requires a large IT staff to write the custom programs that allow the MDM system to provide specific information to the AMI. “And even this usually only occurs in large electric utilities and some very large water utilities—those that I define as ‘NFL-size cities,'” he says. “However, it is not common at all for the majority of water utilities.”

Park City, UT, Water Department
One utility wrestling with the decision as to whether to integrate a centralized data management system into its AMI system is the Park City, UT, Water Department (featured in the article “AMR or AMI: Which Makes More Sense?” in the January/February 2016 issue ofWater Efficiency). The utility recently implemented an AMI system. The department had an AMR system in place, but the city council made a decision to implement AMI in 2009. The city invested in AMI to track water usage in real time, and the city council approved the costly deployment with the promise of rapid leak detection and long-term cost savings in mind.

Now, the utility is looking into the benefits of integrating data with its AMI system. “We are beginning to recognize that data is the next big step for pulling utilities into the 21st century,” says Nick Graue, engineer with the public utility. “We are collecting data in many disjointed places right now—AMI, SCADA, maintenance, etc., and have no way to combine and analyze this information in an effective way. Our primary goal is to be able to leverage all of our data in a meaningful way, so that we can continually improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our water system.”

“We are currently working on integrating the various sources of data with our AMI system in order to make data-driven decisions,” says Jason Christensen, water resources manager. “The City is working on completing a SCADA system upgrade that will position us to combine SCADA data with AMI data.” The utility is currently using AMI data to notify customers of leaks by e-mail immediately upon detection. It also has a system in place to share its AMI data with each customer and allow those customers to use that information to make informed decisions about their water usage. “We would like to get to the point of being able to combine our AMI data with our SCADA system data in a way that allows us to identify water loss, reduce on-peak pumping, decrease water age, and produce water based on forecasted demand,” says Christensen.

There will be challenges, though, according to Christensen. “One challenge is recognizing that specialized fields outside of the water department may need to move into the water department,” he says. For example, information technology needs to continue to grow as the water department updates and integrates its systems. “It is also important that each water department team member is comfortable with the technology, and that we work to develop specialized IT expertise within the department,” he says. “Water team members not only have to use new systems, but they have to begin to see their computers and iPads as important tools, on par with their valve keys and Leathermans.”

City of Gresham, OR
Another water utility has already made the decision to integrate MDM and AMI. In 2008, the City of Gresham, OR, made the decision to launch a pilot program to replace approximately 1,500 small residential meters with an associated fixed-based AMI system, representing about 10% of its small residential meters. The existing meters were behind schedule in replacement, and many were over 30 years old. Around that time, though, the city received an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus grant/loan of almost $5 million, which allowed it to replace the remaining 15,000 residential small meters with an associated AMI system.

In selecting its vendor, the city put out a request for proposal, seeking an AMI meter vendor that could also perform the duties of a general contractor, which would involve hiring subcontractors to install the AMI system as well as the meters. The city ended up selectingthe Sensus FlexNet AMI system as the platform.

As part of the deployment, the city also opted to include MDM. “MDM was part of our AMI deployment package,” says John Aho, capital improvement project manager, Department of Environmental Services, Water Division Engineering, for the city. “We worked with a consultant who had done a couple of AMI projects, and he talked us into having an MDM component for utility billing and customer service purposes, as well as having the data available for conducting ‘cost of service’ analysis.”

According to Jesse Engum, business systems analyst with the city’s Department of Environmental Services, there are few—if any—challenges related specifically to the integration of AMI and MDM, primarily because they were deployed at the same time. “However,shifting from an analog system to a digitized system in general did pose some challenges,” he says. These primarily related to workflows and changing staffing responsibilities. “We had new system hardware and software that we had to learn how to operate and maintain,” says Engum. “There were also some questions about the division of responsibility between the IT department and the water utility.” Prior to this, the water utility had dealt with “pipes and meters and some telemetry,” according to Engum, while IT tended to deal with electronic systems. Now the water utility is involved much more with the electronic systems.

The AMI system is programmed to receive hourly reads, six times per day, and the city is receiving transmission from the meters to its MDM system. There are several benefits to the new technology. For one, the city used to contract out meter reading services, so those associated costs have been eliminated. Second, since accuracy has been improved, revenue has increased slightly as well. Third, the city now has the ability to improve diagnostics. “We can see from the office how well the system is operating, such as issues with leaks, backflow, battery life, or if someone is tampering with something,” says Engum.

Another benefit, according to Engum, is that when customers have questions about their water use, such as being concerned about a leak or learning how to save water, the water department can look at their individual history and help them address their concerns. “Wealso work with other nearby water departments, and having access to our data helps us with this regional work,” he says.