ISM Canada developed a mobile application for a leading utility company in western Canada which revolutionized the existing meter reading and recording process.

Challenge

A leading utility company in western Canada manages thousands of kilometers of transmission lines and other equipment, which brings essential services to their customers. Their legacy meter reading process was inefficient and slow. The utility employee had to first take a picture of the meter, and then use a separate GPS device to tag the location. Any notes and remarks made by the employee were recorded manually in a paper file. The employee then had to travel to a utility station and manually enter the data into the system. The risk of human error was high. Additionally, the utility’s head office had limited visibility into the job completion status and they had minimal data that could be used to improve process efficiency.

Solution

The client partnered with ISM Canada to develop a mobile application to reduce or eliminate manual data entry, enable instant data uploading, and provide head office access to job completion information. The mobile application was built with the ability to take a picture, tag a location using GPS positioning, and record notes electronically. This ensured that all data is uploaded directly to the main asset management system using mobile internet.

Result

The new mobile application eliminated manual data entry errors. All information is now instantly uploaded from the application when it is entered by the utility employee, providing head office employees with visibility into the job completion status. The new application now provides the client with the ability to improve efficiency by quickly and easily identifying areas which require attention.