How OCR Can Take the Pain Out of the Meter to Cash Process
Ebin Thomas
Account Executive at Anyline
Most utility companies rely on a process called “meter-to-cash”: in short, they measure customer energy or water consumption manually to later issue a bill for the right amount. Data gathered during the process allows utility companies to generate and distribute bills, collect payments, and drive revenue.
But what we will discuss in this blog is why this meter-to-cash process is far from ideal for utility companies and for customers. The short answer is that currently, it’s time consuming, labor-intensive and it is prone to mistakes. But let’s do a deeper dive to diagnose the real issues at play.
What are the pain points of meter-to-cash?
Meter-to-cash processes rely on field workers who travel to different locations to read the meters of dozens of households each day. When they arrive and locate the meters, they enter the data manually into the company’s system.
The first pain-point we encounter here is human error. People are susceptible to fatigue, stress or even boredom, which can result in common incorrect meter readings. This is particularly true as most meters have small, marked graduations and digits. What’s more, they are often located in hard to reach or in low-lightning environments. For workers who read meters all day, the process becomes more open to errors as the day wears on.
When errors inevitably happen, the troubles begin:
- A customer can be billed a wrong amount – either being overcharged or undercharged. If being undercharged might not trouble consumers, being overcharged can cause some serious dissatisfaction in the service.
- When the error is spotted, a worker needs to go back to the location to get the correct reading. This takes additional time and work out of regular schedules.
In any case, errors in meter readings reduce the revenue of utility providers.
How OCR takes the pain away
Optical character recognition, or OCR, is a technology that reads alphanumeric characters and numbers, and converts them into digital text so it can be read by a computer. When OCR is integrated into a smart device, like a camera-enabled cell phone or ruggedized device, it allows utility workers to scan meters just as easily as taking a photo.
Using a tablet or a smartphone, workers hold their camera up to the meter and the AI-driven OCR scanner reads the images in the video stream, turning the meter reading into actionable data. When the meter is scanned, the field worker can instantly send them to the utility company’s operations platform for billing.
The technology-driven process eliminates the possibility of human error, as it can also scan meter serial numbers or be bundled with barcode scanning to ensure the right meter is being read – virtually eliminating the possibility of the wrong meter being read and billed to an address.
Utilities using AI-driven OCR scanning can also link the scans to a website or a mobile app that is available to all utility company’s customers. This allows customers to scan their own meters, entirely eliminating the need for field readings by workers, saving even more time and money.
The Benefits of OCR
OCR technologies such as Anyline’s OCR meter reading solution bring an array of benefits to utility operations:
- Accuracy. OCR scanning provides users with industry-leading precision, meaning that it’s virtually impossible for workers or customers to make an error.
- Time savings. The technology scans about 20 times faster than a human can process the data, resulting in significant decreases in the number of working hours required to complete meter readings.
- Reduced worker stress. With tight schedules and targets, high stress is common among utility field workers. OCR helps workers deliver accurate meter readings quickly and with less complexity, resulting in reduced worker strain and better job satisfaction.
How OCR can look in real life
Northumbrian Water supplies water and sewerage services to over 2.7 million customers across the Northeast of England. The company was seeking a technological solution that would allow it to automate dial and analog meter readings to improve overall service delivery.
Today, Northumbrian Water sends customers an email notification when it’s time to read the water meter. Customers are then prompted to point their camera-equipped device at the meter and take a photo, which is scanned automatically using Anyline meter reading. The information is then extracted and uploaded through the company’s app. By using Anyline’s solution, Northumbrian Water has significantly reduced incorrect meter readings while also improving their customer experience. What’s more, this new technology has led customers to better monitor their own water consumption for conservation purposes.
How Anyline Meter Reading Can Be Integrated
Anyline’s data capture technology can be easily integrated directly into any utility company’s existing system, mobile app or website. Our software development kit is easy to install and is backed up by hands-on support from customer service teams ready to help. You can try it for free thanks to our 30-day trial!
It works with Android and iOS smartphones and devices and offers support for common integration frameworks including Xamarin, React Native, Flutter and Cordova. Discover if mobile meter reading is the right solution for you by downloading Anyline’s Energy & Water Demo App to test its capabilities, or contact us today!
