MARS Company: Accurately Measuring Water - to its Last Drop

Historically, the utility sector has relied on mechanical water meters to measure water consumption and generate bills. But over time, the performance of these legacy meters to calculate water usage deteriorates, resulting in inaccurate billing and lost revenue for water service providers. Organizations need a modern and comprehensive water meter testing initiative to minimize such erroneous readings and prevent revenue loss. Having been in the industry for over three decades, a Florida-based water meter testing and analysis firm, MARS Company precisely understands such market scenarios. It develops sustainable water meter testing solutions for modern-day utilities and government municipalities.

MARS Company’s business stems from the fundamental requirement of accurately measuring and billing the water supplied to consumers and commercial entities. The firm’s core competency lies in satisfying the water service providers’ needs by designing, developing, installing, and water meter testing products, including Water Meter Test Benches, analytical software, and tools. The company takes pride in having registered more than 20 patents in and around water meter testing.

Among an array of offerings, MARS Company leverages its proprietary Water Meter Test Bench systems to assist the utility sector and municipalities in recovering revenues. Designed and developed by the company, the Test Bench Systems enable water service providers to test multiple meters simultaneously, measure the amount of water till its last drop, and compare it with the meter’s reading to verify accuracy. As a part of its offering, MARS Company conducts data analysis of the information gathered from the Test Bench systems to help businesses in the business decision-making process. “We have ensured that these meter test results comply with the specifications set up by the American Water Works Association (AWWA). We are the only company in the water meter testing market to offer AWWA/ISO C715 compliant equipment (ultrasonic and electromagnetic style meters) and software solutions,” says Dave Corey, CEO of MARS Company.

Along with its Test Bench systems, MARS Company offers an enterprise-grade software—MARS Meter Management (M3TM)—that interfaces with back-office systems of utilities and municipalities, thereby facilitating data exchange with asset management systems, ERP systems, billing systems, and more. To meet the customers’ different requirements, MARS Company's software uses distinct software modules that include Connectivity, Custom Tests and Reporting, and the Advanced Scale and Control Module to collect and perform sophisticated data analytics on water meter test data. Being the industry’s only enterprise-grade software designed specifically for water meter testing, M3 has in-built AWWA M6 compliant standards and structures and analyzes the water meter data to maintain the accuracy around water meter testing. MARS Company has recently announced the Version four of the M3 software and aspires to release the software's semi-annual updates with added features and functionalities.

To cater to their clients' needs for water consumption data and visualization, MARS Company hasimprovedM3’s data analytics capabilities. They have also recognized the lack of a standard framework to test meters based on factors such as size, type, age, and amount of flow. As such, municipalities and other entities could not compare their water consumption plans and agendas, to see if their existing plans aligned with best practices, or to even define the ideal best practices based on their demographics and water consumption patterns.

“What we did to this end was enhance the software which essentially gave them the ability to look at their meters and evaluate those that are being added or replaced, to ultimately come up with a strategic plan and document it over time. Based on actual performance testing, they were able to generate plan-vs-performance report on a real-time basis,” mentions Corey. The testing data could be used to make better business decisions in the future. After all, during common scenarios where the performance of a specific model of a meter varies based on variables such as the location of deployment and sediments in the water, the need is imperative to choose an ideal meter, and MARS Company makes this possible.

The previous year also saw MARS Company releasing the novel MARS VEROflow-4 "Touch" Mobile Meter Testing System.

Its features include a user-friendly touch-screen interface for easy configuration and display of test results, and improved meter testing accuracy with new, state-of-the-art internal turbines. VEROflow-4 Touch can operate in permanent standby mode and comes with back-light displays that make it easier to read measurements. Moreover, it eliminates the need for a manual magnetic device to reset the totalizer/register.

Furthermore, to keep the entire Test Bench system's integrity, MARS Company offers the water meter testing industry’s only independent equipment accuracy and calibration certification service—MARS Maintenance Calibration &Certification (MCC). Following MCC’s guidelines, MARS Company inspects and certifies the accuracy of all the test bench system components, including weigh scales, tanks, reservoir tanks, re-circulation tanks, and valves, and protects both MARS and selected third-party equipment. Under MCC, the firm also ensures, at least on an annual basis, that all the operators are fully trained and certified at operating the test bench equipment and software.

Also, the firm is offering M3 software in a subscription-based manner that allows municipalities to pay for specific software Modules and features they use of the software. Other future initiatives of MARS Company entails data analysis & visualization, data integration, test system water quality management, meter testing management programs, water loss audit analysis, and reporting. They have also introduced re-circulation systems for their test benches, which saves municipalities huge amounts of water that would otherwise be used for testing a large number of water meters.

As a designated essential business, MARS Company's production facility remained open in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in full adherence to CDC requirements, with most of the staff working remotely. The company made it a point to track each of their customer's openness in conducting business. MARS Company catered to every vendor with varying degrees of operational permits and requirements that pertained to COVID-related mandates. And because the company embraced a one-year sales cycle model, they were quite ahead of time. These factors led to the company not losing out on any business even during COVID restrictions.