Water meter reader is an essential tool for water company, which is responsible for the distribution of clean water to the public and monitor its customer's water consumption. Theoretically water meter should collect water consumption data in accurate and accountable manners. The problem is, in practice, sometimes the record is inaccurate and makes the customers feel uncertain of the water bill that they have to pay. Several factors contributed to this problem, including the officers made mistake in recording the number from water meter or sometimes the officer did not visit the customers and reporting based on the estimation of the water consumption. This chapter proposed a framework to record the water meter data by capturing images in a small mobile device. A prototype, as a proof of concept, of water meter mobile apps was developed to allow the water meter data to read and collected easily to make the billing processed in a more accurate manner but less hassle.
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Clean water is the most important need for human being to survive. Unfortunately, in terms of quality and quantity, the amount and availability of clean water is not easy to predict while the demand always increasing. In Indonesia, to get clean water, people have to register to Regional Water Company (PAM) as a state-owned company that provides clean water. There are 400 units of PAM which expected to be able to improve its performance to meet clean water demand that is increasing along with the population growth. Considering the current population (240 million people), there should be an improvement in the water supply system. This system should be able to establish an effective method to manage water consumption data so that the officers can effectively and efficiently collect the information required. Unfortunately, at this present time, PAM is still collecting data manually by sending the officers to each customer. There are some issues related to water usage data from water meter that is inputted into database, such as inconsistency of the water usage data, the time to collect the water usage data from water meter and inaccuracy of the water usage data collected manually.
In Korea, the majority of 16 million houses use mechanical water meter. The member of the utility’s staff have to access periodically the water meter and the value of the metered volume. This approach, the use of mechanical water meter, raised many issues including cost, time, errors, accessibility, and readability (Sin et al., 2009).
The water meter officers are the officers assigned to read and record the water meter data at customers’ place and input the number to computer program to calculate the water bill. This system has several weaknesses such as lack of evidence that the officers are actually visiting the customers, and the record is not analyzed and verified properly because of inadequate application.
With the development of information technology system and PAM’s effort to improve its service to the customers, there’s a need to design an accurate, fast, and precise tool by utilizing mobile computing capability in supporting the information management system in PAM Office. The implementation of computerization of a massive and complex system which consists of inter-related subsystems makes PAM management becomes complicated and challenging especially for the supply and demand of clean water resources. This followed by the improvement of service delivery in speed and accuracy and facilities. Developing a computer based information management system in PAM is one of appropriate alternative solution. Poor planning or inappropriate stages in a computer based information system can create a problem to the company. Therefore, specific information management system for PAM should be developed seriously by an experienced professional.