Replacing traditional meter reading with automatic meter reading is a fundamental change in meter reading. Business companies that are independent of water supply companies and have professional operation strength can better complete this change.
Key words: tap water, remote water meter, automatic meter reading.
China is rapidly entering the information age, but the traditional manual meter reading method is still used by water enterprises. The meter reading is not timely, inaccurate and inefficient, which has increasingly become a shackle to the development of the industry. This can neither blame the water supply enterprises for their lack of enthusiasm and efforts in new technologies, nor blame the lack of excellent products for the automatic meter reading of remote water meters. After 2000, some water supply companies have actively adopted advanced technology to thoroughly change the traditional manual meter reading method. This kind of consciousness and behavior of breaking through constraints, breaking the Convention, and actively promoting from tradition to modernity is really very touching. However, due to the lack of mature products and technologies at the beginning, the perfect planning of automatic meter reading finally failed. However, in recent years, enterprises related to automatic meter reading products have increased their pursuit of technology research and development and quality improvement. A series of remote water meter sensing technologies driven by self-protection switch and passive thick film sensing technology have been put into the market one after another, showing the maturity and feasibility of the products with more than one million sets of promotion. At the same time, wired meter reading methods such as telephone, broadband, LAN, palm machine and wireless meter reading technologies such as gprs/gsm and ZigBee have also become mature. Many products and technologies in the field of automatic meter reading are no longer a problem.
Does this mean that automatic meter reading products can be boldly promoted and rapidly popularized? Not necessarily!
The transformation from manual meter reading to automatic meter reading requires not only a set of excellent product series, but also a set of management system and product system suitable for products, and an operation mode suitable for the current situation, system and management mode of the water industry. Otherwise, even with excellent products and sufficient funds, human resources and other promotion elements, the purpose of automatic meter reading promotion is still difficult to achieve.
So, what mode should the water industry use to successfully realize the operation transformation from traditional meter reading to automatic meter reading? In this regard, the author tracked and discussed the various modes of dozens of water supply enterprises. It is believed that large-scale intelligent meter reading projects should be handed over to institutions independent of water companies for professional business operations. The reasons are as follows.
1、 The main business of water companies is selling water rather than automatic meter reading
Intelligent meter reading equipment is a highly technical equipment, which needs professional operation, and the mission of the water company is to ensure water supply and reasonable charges. If the existing human and financial resources of the water company can just do the original water sales work well, then joining the operation and management of an intelligent meter reading system of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of households is bound to be difficult for the water company. Because the operation process of intelligent meter reading is not as simple as the original ordinary water meter. In this regard, no matter how important automatic meter reading is for collecting water charges, water companies are unlikely to spend a lot of money on the maintenance and operation of intelligent meter reading equipment.
2、 Water companies are state-owned enterprises with low profits, which is not enough to support the perennial operation of an expensive system.
The water charge of a few to more than ten yuan per household per month is barely enough to maintain the water supply of a city. It is not easy to maintain the accurate operation of a set of modern intelligent meter reading equipment. Just think about the investment in telephone operation. In the early stage of infrastructure construction, there is a huge and free net investment (initial installation fee), another continuous maintenance fee (monthly rental fee), and more profitable commodity fees (telephone fees) in operation. After considering high wages and benefits, telecom companies still have considerable financial resources to mobilize positive factors and maintain normal operations. And such conditions and models are obviously impossible for water companies.
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