The goal of digitizing the grid today is achieved with the massive installation of advanced smart meters and the implementation of advanced systems for analyzing and processing data from the field. ARAD Group, a multinational group of Israeli origin and world leader in metrology, of which WaterTech is a part, has been moving on this plan for some time now.
WaterTech – ARAD Group supports distributors in the design and deployment of smart metering ecosystems, consisting of smart electronic meters, communication networks, and software systems for data analysis. These are complex and sophisticated ecosystems consisting of an important hardware part and equally fundamental digital elements.
We develop fully bidirectional communication systems, which allow data collected by smart meters to be transmitted to the center and, vice versa, send information from the SAC/MDM to field devices.
WaterTech’s innovative technology, the result of profound know-how and accumulated experience in the field of gas smart metering, enables the entire IT superstructure (both Point-to-Point and Point-to-Multi-Point) to be covered. This allows data to flow from the periphery (the smart meters) to the center (and in the opposite direction). Subsequently, the data is processed by the smart meter data analysis software. In this way, management of the network, users, billing, and the entire distribution system can be optimized.
WaterTech is also equipped to provide additional services, for example, field supply (supply + field installation). Coupled with field installation there can be additional useful services such as updating utility master records (including geolocation of meters) and scheduling and management of the meter replacement campaign (including appointment management with end customers).
The next level of service is data transmission: not only do we take charge of the installation of the smart meters, but we also see to it that the data are transported from the field equipment to the utility’s control center, even building the communication network, should it be required and/or necessary. Finally, we can also do the data processing.

The range of solutions spans the entire smart metering chain: meter production, field installation, transport of data to the DAQ/MDM, and their processing to transform them into useful information for management.
Precisely to ensure this comprehensive and total level of service, WaterTech has its own DAQ/MDM, which can be customized based on customer specifications.
WaterTech has always been close to customers and able to offer services that adapt to their needs. Our systems are extremely flexible and modifiable on the specific needs of each utility. Each distributor manages a different territory, with different networks and specific needs. Therefore, each utility needs unique and customized data and information. WaterTech creates tailor-made systems that meet the requirements of every distributor. As with the wide range of customizations possible on our meters, we can offer a variety of solutions for the implementation of data transmission systems and smart meter data analysis.
As needed, we can manage existing DAQ/MDMs, create new ones, or make ours available (with appropriately tailored adaptations). This is because the landscape of water distributors in the territories is almost always extremely varied: from the local utility that needs to reset its network to the multi-utility that already has an established and complex infrastructure system. WaterTech is always able to provide answers and support companies in their industrial goals.

ARAD Group – for several years now – has established huge data centers for big data management in the Netherlands, Israel, Canada, and the United States.

 These giant control centers currently manage more than 10 million smart meters installed around the world. The European data center – located in the Netherlands – receives and processes data from about 2.5 million meters installed in Europe. It is one of the largest DAQ/MDMs in the world, dedicated only to IoT networks. WaterTech – being part of ARAD Group – can offer all its customers this extremely advanced, accurate, secure, and proven data collection, storage, management, and processing solution with unparalleled computational capacity. A project aimed exclusively at distribution networks, which made it possible to specialize processes and give a complete service for the needs of utilities.
The entire system is created to make simple, yet comprehensive calculation and analysis possibilities. Extreme attention is also paid to data and information security. Relying on WaterTech – ARAD Group’s state-of-the-art data centers brings countless advantages:

• Data security: a factor that involves both hardware and software. When handling such important information, which can involve the water supply itself, cybersecurity is a key aspect. In addition to protecting information and ensuring user privacy, the entire infrastructure’s data must be safeguarded, both from hacker attacks and from extraordinary events that impact the machines.
• Advanced systems: globally, organizations such as IWA (International Water Association) and other networks of water industry players are working on the importance of comparing experiences and technologies to define winning strategies. Joining specialized centralized systems means having the best technologies available that are always up to date over time.
• Processing power and computation: the amount of information from meters is considerable. We are talking on average about millions of data per day to be processed and checked. Only high-performance and continuously updated calculators can withstand such complex processing and offer state-of-the-art smart meter data analysis service. Systems that would require a major commitment both in terms of investment and maintenance.

WaterTech also provides systems and services to utilities through cooperation with other specialized companies, including those chosen by the customer himself. The goal is to give distributors a complete, turnkey solution, always aligned with specific needs.

Having highly advanced IT skills, we are able to integrate our products, systems, and services with those already in place within the grid operator. In this way, the utility is not forced to purchase all the elements of the smart metering chain from WaterTech alone but can also select the aspects of our commercial offering that it likes best and integrate them at will with the hardware and software ecosystem it already has in house.
This is made possible by the fact that the solutions and systems we offer are open and scalable, thus not configuring themselves as a “mono-block” package to be taken necessarily complete. Rather systems and services tailored to each client, highly customizable, and integrable.