Zebra Mobile Printers Ease Invoicing for Over 2 Million Heating, Water and Electricity Meters

Unique precision meter-reading system
Brunata A/S uses its own hand-held terminals and the market’s leading portable printers to read two million heating, water and electricity meters a year. Fewer scanning errors, trimmed-down administration and improved customer service are some of the advantages of the new portable scan-print system used by Brunata A/S.

Most work can now be done at the customer’s site
Because the company’s meter readers now use water and heating meters that operate digitally, they are able to complete much of their work at the customer’s premises or home.

The project means that most of all readings are now done by tapping the figures into the handheld terminal. Individual electronic heating meters can be read directly via the terminal. The meter reader can see on the hand-held terminal all the important information for each individual appliance and, in the vast majority of cases, rectify any errors on-site instead of returning to the office and looking up the appliance in the system

Brunata can now begin to reap the benefit of its investment
It has taken two to three years to develop the handheld terminal, and Brunata can only now begin to reap the benefits of its investment. Digitalization has involved increased growth in the number of readings, uniform work routines at the company’s thirteen Danish departments, fewer errors and an efficient IT system.

Lightweight mobile printers were te key to the solution
Zebra Technologies’ wide range of barcode printers has contributed to Brunata’s ability to carry out efficient readings, using faster receipt printouts. Zebra has so far delivered around 35 portable Cameo 2 printers to Brunata, which will use 135 handheld printers once all of the old matrix printers have been replaced.

New system saves time and improves accuracy
“Zebra’s printers are fast and quiet, and provide clear printouts of receipts. We can offer improved customer service since we can now quickly and efficiently supply a professional product at any premises or residence. In addition, the printers’ size and weight means that our meter readers can carry them throughout the working day. They are also easy to maintain since the user does not need to replace ink ribbons. These merits are an important element in our strategy to develop inexpensive and efficient solutions,” says Niels Johansen, IT-manager at Brunata A/S.

Brunata previously read heating meters manually on-site, and the customer received a handwritten receipt. It took a long time for the meter reader to register the readings and fill in the forms by hand. These were then sent to a clerk at the administration department who first checked the figures twice and then entered them into the system. Mr Johansen points out these procedures involved a lot of serious input errors and created administrative problems.