ST. LOUIS, Sept. 23, 2003 -- Datamatic, Ltd. announced that the company has reached a milestone with the sale of the 500,000th FIREFLY® Meter Interface Unit.
Designed for water, gas and electric meters, the half millionth FIREFLY MIU will be part of an order to be delivered by reselling partner Groeniger & Company to the Dublin San Ramon Services District in Dublin, Calif. A supplier of enterprise meter reading solutions, Datamatic has served utilities worldwide since 1977.
"Demand for our automated meter reading systems has expanded because utilities are under increasing pressure to better manage their water supplies and expenditures," stated Datamatic Vice President Scott Durham. "FIREFLY can do much more than simply reduce meter reading costs. Our AMR system has been proven to improve a utility's customer service while enhancing productivity and efficiency."
The 500,000th FIREFLY is part of a 5,600 unit project sold by Groeniger & Company to the Dublin San Ramon Services District in Dublin. This project includes complete meter change out to AMCO encoded meters and installation of a FIREFLY AMR system. Vulcan Construction and Maintenance of Fresno is the general contractor for the project.
"This will be the first delivery of FIREFLY units pre-potted to AMCO encoded registers," stated Groeniger & Company Sales Manager Dan Hancock. "We expect to win many more projects in the near future using Datamatic meter reading technology coupled to our AMCO meters."
Datamatic's FIREFLY MIU is the key to the first truly meter independent AMR system; it can be easily adapted to almost any meter in the world. This flexibility allows utilities to install FIREFLY on current meters and keeps them from being limited to a specific meter brand for future deployment.
"FIREFLY MIU's archive consumption data at user-definable intervals using a feature called ProfilePLUS™," added Durham. "When set to record hourly readings, each water FIREFLY can hold over 74 days of hourly consumption data to solve billing disputes, identify leaks prior to a customer complaint and complete time of use billing. In addition, the data can help prevent theft and meter tampering, allows monitoring and enforcement of conservation programs, maximizes operational efficiency and provides data for proper planning of infrastructure improvements. Before FIREFLY, this information was unavailable without costly flow monitors or network infrastructure."
About Datamatic, Ltd.
Datamatic is a provider of utility meter reading automation. The company's innovative ideas created an industry when it installed the first electronic meter reading system in 1980. For nearly a quarter of a century, Datamatic has been at the forefront 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 by calling Scott Black at (214) 520-3430 or on the Web at www.datamatic.com.
