Download PDF
City of Niles: Small City Leverages the Power of Technology
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Cities & Municipalities
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Fraud Detection
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
The City of Niles, Michigan, provides its residents with water, sewer, and electricity services. The Utilities department was struggling to fulfill customer inquiries and perform internal audits due to the complexity of their billing software and electrical rates. They were unable to view or recreate old bills, and only had access to the dollar amount of the bill. Detailed information such as the rate, meter number, service location, and address was essentially lost. When electrical rates changed, the software was reprogrammed with a new rate structure, making adjusting the rate or recreating an old bill impossible. The department wanted to implement a flexible document management system that could grow and change with the department’s changing needs.
About The Customer
The City of Niles is a small town located in the southwest corner of Michigan, just north of the Indiana state line and only 90 minutes from downtown Chicago. The City of Niles and the surrounding Niles Townships govern a combined population of 33,000 providing essential municipal, police, and electrical services for the area. The City of Niles is unique in that it supplies its residents with not only water and sewer services, but electricity as well. Electrical billing is very complex and the Utilities department struggled to fulfill customer inquires and perform internal audits.
The Solution
The City of Niles is using DocuWare to store utility bills and utility applications, police incident reports, and financial documents. DocuWare’s TIFFMAKER print driver is used to import a copy of each bill into DocuWare. The images are able to be automatically indexed using OCR technology. The staff can also do a full-text search on all the information contained on the bill such as the meter number, service locations, and billing address. Looking up old bills and other information is now a very simple process, instead of a series of “best guesses.“ DocuWare is also used to store a permanent record of change of service request forms. The system is also helping reduce fraud. When an individual comes in to set up their electric service their application and a form of ID such as a driver’s license or green card are stored in DocuWare.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Turning A Stadium Into A Smart Building
Honeywell created what it called the “intelligent system” for the National Stadium in Beijing, China, turning the venue for the opening and closing events at the 2008 Summer Olympics into a “smart building.” Designed by highly controversial artist Ai Weiwei, the “Bird’s Nest” remains one of the most impressive feats of stadium architecture in the world. The 250,000 square meter structure housed more than 100,000 athletes and spectators at a time. To accommodate such capacity, China turned to Honeywell’s EBI Integrated Building Management System to create an integrated “intelligent system” for improved building security, safety and energy efficiency.
.png)
Case Study
Smart Street Light Network (Copenhagen)
Key stakeholders are taking a comprehensive approach to rethinking smart city innovation. City leaders have collaborated through partnerships involving government, research institutions and solution providers. The Copenhagen Solutions Lab is one of the leading organizations at the forefront of this movement. By bringing together manufacturers with municipal buyers, the Copenhagen Solutions Lab has catalyzed the development and deployment of next-generation smart city innovations. Copenhagen is leveraging this unique approach to accelerate the implementation of smart city solutions. One of the primary focus areas is LED street lighting.
Case Study
Buoy Status Monitoring with LoRa
The Netherlands are well-known for their inland waterways, canals, sluices and of course port activities. The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure indicates that there are thousands of buoys and fixed items in and near water environments that would profit from IoT monitoring. One of the problems with buoys for example, is that they get hit by ships and the anchor cable breaks. Without connectivity, it takes quite some time to find out that something has happened with that buoy. Not to mention the costs of renting a boat to go to the buoy to fix it. Another important issue, is that there is no real-time monitoring of the buoys at this moment. Only by physically visiting the object on the water, one gains insight in its status.
Case Study
China Mobile Smart Parking
Smart Parking, powered by NB-IoT technology, is making it easier for drivers to find free parking spots. Cities can better manage their parking assets and maximize the revenue available to them as a result. Drivers searching for parking create congestion and pollution by circling and hunting for available parking. Smart Parking services are able to significantly ease these problems by guiding a driver directly to a parking space.
Case Study
Barcelona Case Study
Barcelona’s heavy traffic and its associated high levels of pollution were the primary factors that motivated some companies and universities to work on strategies for improving traffic in the city centre. Bitcarrier is one of the technologies involved in the In4Mo Project, whose main objective is to develop the applications that form the core of smart mobility, one of the fundamental pillars of the smart city concept.
