Improving Water Management Services with Smart Water Meters

Water is one of the vital needs of life that cannot be replaced by anything. The existence of a water management company is a must because currently the available water cannot be used directly due to various reasons such as being contaminated with harmful minerals or polluted by environmental conditions and various other reasons. In Indonesia, clean water is managed by state-owned companies which in practice are broken down into regionally owned companies that house smaller areas such as cities, regencies or provinces.

One of them is PT. Tirta Asasta which is a water management company for the city of Depok. As the name implies, welfare water, the presence of PT Tirta Asasta is expected to improve the welfare of the people in Depok city through the provision of clean water as one of the main necessities of life. Unfortunately, similar to several water management companies in Indonesia, PT Tirta Asasta is also faced with several quite complex problems. These problems include pipe leakage, non-revenue water, as well as calculations and recording of water use by consumers which are still carried out conventionally and require large amounts of human resources with a fairly high failure rate. 

Pipe leaks are unavoidable. Water is drained using long cheeks from the management center before being used by consumers. Of course, it is not easy to carry out maintenance on these pipes. And it is even less easy to detect leaks if they are not supported by appropriate technology. Usually pipe leaks are only noticed after they occur in large quantities. To deal with this leak, PT Tirta Asasta had to stop the distribution of water to areas where leaks were suspected. This cessation of water flow can occur for quite a long time. In addition to harming consumers, something like this will also cause large amounts of losses for PT Tirta Asasta. 

Not only that, pipe leaks also cause other problems, namely non-revenue water or water that does not bring profits. Leaks make water wasted because it does not reach consumers. Another loss that can be caused by this leak is that it causes soaring consumer bills, causing complaints that will damage the corporate image of PT Tirta Asasta as a water management company.

Measurements that are still carried out conventionally where an officer will come to the consumer once every month to record are also problems that must be found immediately. This recording process does not always take place smoothly due to various obstacles in the field such as the condition of locked houses, fences that are too high, meter positions that are not easily accessible or covered by plants and other things. Constraints in recording cause large and continuous losses.

As already mentioned, this is a fairly complex problem with urgency to be handled as quickly as possible or PT Tirta Asasta will continue to experience losses that prevent the company from developing and improving services. One of the solutions used by PT Tirta Asasta to solve this problem is the Smart Water Meter from Telkom Indonesia. 

Technological Developments Present Smart Water Meters as Solus

In the end, the problems faced by PT Tirta Asasta are caused by supervision that can only be carried out on a limited basis. PT Tirta Asasta cannot carry out close, thorough and real-time supervision. This incompetence is the source of the problems mentioned earlier. If this can be resolved, it will be a solution to the main problems faced by PT Tirta Asasta in Depok City. 

As in other fields, technology is the best solution owned by PT Tirta Asasta. The development of technology presents a Smart Water Meter. Just like other technologies that have the word "smart" in front of them, Smart Water Meter also means a water meter equipped  with various technologies such as the Internet of Things which allows Smart Water Meter devices to carry out surveillance automatically and in real-time. 

If the supervision is carried out automatically and around the clock, PT Tirta Asasta will get data in real-time. Not only data related to water use by consumers, PT TIrta Asasta will also get data related to water pressure and so on. With this information, PT Tirta Asasta can detect leaks in pipes early so that they can handle them quickly and precisely. But that's not the only reason why PT Tirta Asasta chose to use a Smart Water Meter. This technology offers many advantages, some of the main ones of which are:

Efficiency and Savings 

Only by using a Smart Water Meter can PT Tirta Asasta make efficiency and savings. PT Tirta Asasta can make savings in terms of costs because now everything is done automatically so that there is no longer a need for large amounts of human resources to record manually. Smart Water Meters also significantly reduce the number of consumers who do not make payments due to failures in the water meter recording process due to various obstacles in the field. Automation also leads to time and energy savings. 

Reliable with High Accuracy

Smart Water Meter is reliable because it is equipped with a management dashboard that companies can use to supervise all incoming data in real-time. The data obtained also have higher accuracy than conventional methods used before. With the data generated by the Smart Water Meter, by using the right data processing, water management companies can make better decisions than before as well as provide more suitable and appropriate services for consumers. 

Customization and personalization

The technology used in the Smart Water Meter allows PT Tirta Asasta to make customizations or adjustments both during installation and in the future. With this customization capability, companies can use Smart Water Meters according to their needs without having to waste resources. In the future, if needed, companies can improve both services and the size of storage space such as cloud and the like. 

Not only that, with various types of data that can be collected by Smart Water Meters, PT Tirta Asasta can see the habits of consumers that can be processed into different offers to each consumer according to their habits and needs. Customized offers like this will increase loyalty from consumers because it gives the impression that every consumer is important to PT Tirta Asasta.

Telkom Indonesia Uses the Best Technology for Smart Water Meters

Smart Water Meter from Telkom Indonesia is the best choice for PT Tirta Asasta because this service is presented by Telkom Indonesia using various of the best technologies it has. Some of the technologies used to deliver this service are: 

Internet of Things (IoT)

Smart Water Meter simply means a water meter device that can communicate and share data using a network. What makes this possible is a technology called the Internet of Things or IoT. Telkom Indonesia uses Cyble communication modules designed to meet the requirements of all water management utilities. This communication module will collect water usage consumption data and send it to the LoRaWAN network which will eventually be accessible through the company's monitoring dashboard. 

LoRaWAN

It stands for Long Range Wide Area Network which is a long-distance wireless communication system for devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). Currently, LoRaWan owned by Telkom Indonesia has spread throughout the country with gateways installed at more than 592 points from Sabang to Merauke.

Antares IoT Platform

This technology is still related to LoRaWAN. Antares IoT Platform is a platform developed by Telkom Indonesia with international certification from OneM2M which means that this platform can accommodate international protocols and technical standards to ensure interoperability and seamless connectivity for each device to be integrated with IoT devices. 

Dashboard Monitoring

Smart Water meter from Telkom Indonesia is equipped with a dashboard that can be used by PT Tirta Asasta to carry out data monitoring and processing. 

In addition, Telkom Indonesia also provides Contact Center services that can be contacted by water management companies that use the Smart Water Meter service if there are problems or damage. This service will solve obstacles, disturbances and damages that occur as quickly as possible so that the company does not need to stop distributing clean water to the community. 

Not only that, Telkom Indonesia as a state-owned enterprise in the field of telecommunications and technology continues to innovate and maximize various latest technologies to present products and services. Likewise with the Smart Water Meter which will continue to experience innovation and change along with technological developments. This is done so that Indonesia continues to move to become a developed country with the use of technology.