Itron Inc. has released Itron Enterprise Edition Meter Data Management version 6.0. IEE MDM is the market leading solution for the collection, validation, calculation, and management of utility metering data for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), automated metering (AMR), and commercial and industrial metering deployments.

IEE version 6.0 includes a number of significant enhancements, including a new application called Mass Market Customer Care that enables residential mass market customers to manage their energy and water usage and costs.

Mass Market Customer Care is a web-based tool that allows electric, gas, and water utilities’ end use customers to access and better understand their energy consumption and cost drivers. For example, it enables a customer to easily compare their usage this year to last year and then drill down to see their hour-by-hour usage for a given day via the Internet.

IEE Mass Market Customer Care also provides the utility Customer Service Representatives (CSR) with a complementary toolset so they can respond to new types of customer questions that will arise with the deployment of advanced meters and new demand response rate programs. The CSR toolset includes features such as on-demand meter read capability specifically designed to support advanced metering functions.

Built using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Web Services, and new portlet technology and standards, Mass Market Customer Care can be deployed and integrated within a utility’s existing customer portal site and Customer Service systems ensuring consistent look and feel for both customers and employees.

Other IEE version 6.0 enhancements include:

• Optimization and reduction of storage requirements for meter reading data. As utilities move forward with large-scale AMI deployments, the Meter Data Management system will be required to store billions of meter reading records and terabytes of data. This optimization reduces data storage requirement by more than 40 percent thereby lowering the utility’s total cost of ownership
• A new workflow tool enabling MDM operators to quickly troubleshoot and resolve problems that occur with commercial and industrial remote meter interrogations.
• New integrated custom reporting and scheduled report delivery functionality.
• New interval-based validation and estimation algorithms specifically required for European and Australian markets.
• New register reading validation and editing functionality most commonly required in European markets.