Utility Design Services

Company profile

UDS specialises in consulting and implementation in revenue management. We provide an independent unbiased analysis from a utility point of view. Extensive experience of the user and supplier market in all areas of revenue collection and metering enables UDS to contrast various technologies to advise on the most cost effective solution for a particular application. Experience has shown that traditional billing may be appropriate for one application, prepayment for another, and remote meter reading or AMR (prepaid or billed) for another. UDS stands by its analysis and can provide various levels of operational support to the utility ranging from consulting services to turnkey operation and maintenance.

The markets that UDS are active in are Southern Africa, Africa, Asia and the America’s. Our clients are utilities, governments, aid organizations and private companies.

UDS also provides revenue management services on a turnkey basis for conventional as well as prepaid customers. UDS can provide an integrated service to manage water, electricity, rates and taxes accounts and for the utility. But revenue management is more than just revenue collection. The services offered by UDS are:

·Situational Analyses/Feasibility studies
·Audits/Energy balancing
·Training/Capacity building
·Project Management
·Project finance/ Leasing arrangements
·Installation and commissioning of systems and meters
·Prepaid vending processes for water and electricity
·Billing for water, electricity, sewerage, rates and taxes etc
·Transaction Management
·Meter management and maintenance
·Revenue Protection
·Information Management
·System Management
·PR/Customer Care/Callouts
·Turnkey projects/Management contracts/Operating contracts/Concessions
 

Product & services

The following is a brief review of recent projects:

1. Study into best practices for revenue improvement in the South African Municipal environment.

The study was conducted on behalf of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. Various approaches to revenue improvement were analyzed and the merits of each in the South African context were discussed. Technologies considered were Metering, Internet billing, AMR, RMR, prepaid water and electricity, GIS technologies and technologies for credit management and credit control.


2. Prepayment metering specialists on Eskom’s Prepaid Operations Project (POP).

POP was an initiative to streamline the revenue management and reduce non-technical losses in Eskom’s prepaid environment of over 2.5 million prepaid electricity customers. UDS formed part of a multi-disciplinary team under the lead of Accenture for a period of 6 months. UDS role was that of technical and business specialist providing team members with support and strategy formulation. Eskom’s online strategy was proposed and developed by UDS during this project.

3. Prepayment revenue collection systems in Bangladesh.

A public private partnership for one of the Distribution areas of Bangladesh is being developed as a pilot project. UDS completed the feasibility studies and a project worth about $4 million, financed as a grant from the German government is underway. UDS and Fichtner GMBH are working together as joint venture partners on this project.