Utility
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Applications
• Accounts Payable
• Work Order Processing |
Historically, the utility industry in the United States has been a regulated monopoly. In this environment it has grown to provide a very reliable source of energy for the customer and a safe industry for the investor. Return on investment was almost guaranteed and for more than half of this century electricity prices were declining. There was a high degree of cooperation between separate utilities to the point of sharing resources during times of weather related outages. In the latter part of the twentieth century prices began to rise for a variety of reasons. And pressures began to build for restructuring, particularly in those regions of the country with higher than average electricity prices.
Now that deregulation of the industry is in full swing, utilities are tightening their belts. Real competition, and even just the threat of future competition, has become a strong motivator for improving efficiencies and holding down or reducing prices charged for energy. In areas where large industrial and commercial customers are allowed to shop around for power, many have either signed new contracts with their local supplier at reduced rates or actually switched to an alternate supplier.
Imaging Solutions deployed solutions
In an effort to assist utilities reduce cost, be more competitive and provide better service to their customers, Imaging Solutions, Inc. has deployed document capture (OCR) solutions to help some of the largest utilities in the northeast.
Imaging Solutions has deployed an Accounts Payable capture solution that extracts data from unstructured documents and releases it to a large content management repository for storage, retrieval and processing. This process significantly reduces key entry time, improves the time and accuracy to process an invoice and improves communications with the vendor.
In addition, Imaging Solutions has deployed a forms work order solution that is used to survey a home’s energy efficiency. The goal is to automate the process, reduce manual key entry time and streamline communication back to the homeowner.
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