Trimble Acquires LET Systems to Expand its Utilities Solutions for Smart Grid Outage and Incident Management
Trimble has acquired privately-held LET Systems based in
Cork, Ireland
.
LET Systems is an internationally recognized leader in incident and
outage management system solutions for utilities. The acquisition
is part of Trimble's strategic utilities and smart grid initiative to
bring productivity solutions to the global utilities industry.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
LET
Systems provides OMS, network modeling, customer contact and mobile
workforce management software for electric, gas, water and wastewater
utilities. Its innovative eRespond™ software platform provides
utilities with the tools to increase network reliability, improve
efficiency and reduce the cost of day-to-day operations while improving
customer service and regulatory reporting. eRespond is a modular
spatially-enabled solution designed and proven to meet the needs of a
broad range of utilities—from small, community-based utilities with
fewer than 200,000 service connections to large utilities that cover an
entire country with approximately 16,000,000 service connections.
eRespond
provides a comprehensive set of features designed to simplify the
end-to-end process of incident and outage management in a utility's
distribution network. It supports business processes such as customer
trouble call management, fault identification and detection, automatic
grouping of calls and telemetry using unique algorithms, smart meter
and distribution management system (DMS) integration, work force
management and regulatory reporting.
LET
System's eRespond can improve the management of trouble calls, outages,
planned outages and maintenance events, and provide quicker fault
location identification, aiding in reduction of fault durations. The
software platform can also improve the usage of field resources by
providing tools to accurately report on outages via mobile and by
allowing crews to identify and add devices to outages. eRespond also
includes background monitoring of key event parameters with automatic
user alerting, which is received via third party Supervisory Control
and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Smart Meter Automated Meter
Infrastructure (AMI) and telemetry systems.
"Innovative
technology is transforming the way utilities are planned, managed,
built and maintained. LET Systems and the eRespond smart grid OMS
solution provide utility customers the tools to save time and cost to
improve decision making and operational efficiencies," said Katherine Sandford,
general manager for Trimble's Utilities Field Solutions business. "The
acquisition of LET Systems will strengthen Trimble's Utilities Field
Solutions product portfolio by adding comprehensive, scalable incident
and outage management capabilities."
"Becoming part of Trimble is the ideal next step for eRespond and the team at LET Systems," said Marcus McCarthy,
managing director of LET. "We are looking forward to expanding our
customer base with the help of a global team and are anticipating being
able to offer broader solutions to our current customers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The acquisition will strengthen our partnerships with smart grid
industry leaders and allow us to better serve their needs in a rapidly
changing marketplace."
LET System's business will be reported in Trimble's Field Solutions segment.