Itron Inc. is a leading global supplier of smart grid solutions and metering technology.

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Itron Inc., a leading worldwide supplier of smart grid solutions and smart metering technology and a market leader in automation, is transforming manufacturing techniques to respond to rapidly changing customer needs as power distribution in North America undergoes an unprecedented transformation.     

One of the greatest challenges facing electric distribution is responding to rapidly changing customer needs. Government agencies, such as the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, realize the nation’s aging electric grid cannot keep pace with innovations in digital information and the telecommunications network. Changing utility requirements are impacting how vendors design, develop and distribute hardware and software metering solutions to optimize the delivery and use of energy and water.    

In an age of constant technological innovations, utility customers’ tolerance for outages, fluctuations in voltages and frequency levels, and other power quality disturbances is greatly lowered. Utilities now call for system offerings that will answer customer challenges associated with increased energy costs, regulatory policies, energy efficiency, heightened environmental awareness and homeland security concerns.   

The push for more open standards and communications technologies is introducing a much broader set of solutions for advanced metering and communication technologies, thereby increasing the complexity for vendors like Itron.

Market Trends
For the widespread adoption of these broader solutions for a “smart grid” to become a reality, utilities will need solutions that provide their end-customers with real-time energy usage information and advanced metering solutions that can enable them to deploy demand response and energyefficiency programs. Thus, the reliable and secure transfer of information also is becoming increasingly critical to many.

To help curtail peak demand and deal with the plight of higher energy prices without investing in expensive new generation capacity, utility companies are turning to leading technology providers like Itron to deliver on their growing and changing requirements and demand for response capabilities.

Itron’s Vision for AMI
An abbreviation for “advanced metering infrastructure,” AMI is an increasingly used term in the industry and, generally speaking, refers to systems that are capable of collecting detailed energy usage data more frequently. Collection of more timely and granular data enables utilities to support time-based pricing programs for their customers, as well as to achieve other benefits relating to en­ergy delivery and customer em­powerment via informed energy usage choices.    

OpenWay by Itron sets a new standard for AMI technology in form and function. Fundamentally, AMI represents an infrastructure that utilizes smart meters with advanced two-way communications to enable utilities to meet their business needs for meter data collection and empowers all its customers to actively and frequently participate in demand response and energy conservation, while supporting movement toward the smart grid of the future.    

With regulatory agencies and a strong federal government push toward a smart grid, utilities are rapidly phasing out remaining electromechanical meters and are looking for meters with intelligent functionality. Many industry leaders have stated that the approach to developing AMI meters and the systems that support them need to be as visionary as AMI itself.   

Itron is positioned to build the most reliable smart metering solutions for the utility marketplace – a direct result of its focus on maintaining an average annual investment of 10 percent of its revenue toward research and development, and adopting state-of-the-art equipment to develop new, more cost-effective manufacturing strategies that will enable it to meet record high-volume production demands of customers.    

Thus, the CENTRON Meter – launched in 1998 ­– is undergoing an unprecedented transformation.    

It was the first cost-effective, solid-state residential electricity metering product. Itron’s electricity metering product line marketing, engineering, research, development and production teams are revolutionizing product functionality and manufacturing strategies to successfully deliver on the AMI vision with the OpenWay CENTRON meter.

A Proven Platform
Itron engineers have built upon the proven CENTRON solid-state platform to deliver an advanced meter that provides open-standards architecture, modular design for flexibility in communications, and extensive feature/functionality to support the most demanding AMI business requirements. This meter is designed for use with the OpenWay system by Itron that will provide a number of capabilities designed to meet the most rigorous of AMI business cases, including:

• Two-way communication to each meter;
• Scalability to greater than 10 million meters; 
• Multiple-channel interval data collection; 
• On-demand reads; 
• Demand reset; 
• A remote load-limiting disconnect/reconnect switch; 
• Critical peak pricing and time-of-use rate updates (available on the display);
• Mass-market demand response capability; 
• Net metering for dynamic pricing environments; 
• Advanced outage detection and restoration notification; 
• Tamper and theft detection; 
• Remote device configuration and firmware updates; and 
• Local connectivity to gas and water meters, as well as in-home devices via a ZigbeeTM radio chip that comes standard in all OpenWay CENTRON electricity meters.
  

Product Expansion
This product expansion has created even more opportunity for Itron to identify cost savings and efficiency gains in how it builds and designs product. The greatest change to the electricity metering product is the addition of the service switch feature.    

Service switch capability also en­ables utilities to minimize dispatching readers and eliminates having to manually answer service calls in high move-in/move-out areas to turn electricity on and off. It also enables load control programs that utilize remote shutoff of consumer electrical power to enable price-responsive rate schedules, load shed verification and messaging (such as price signals) to the residential, mass market segment of utility’s customer base.   

“Our metering strategies are leading the trends in the industry,” says Lowell Rust, director of product marketing for electricity metering products. “The CENTRON was the first solid-state meter to begin to displace featured limited legacy electromechanical metering products.  

“Now 10 years later, Itron’s solid-state meters are providing utilities enabling technologies to the meet smart grid and smart metering initiatives. The completion of our high-volume production capabilities has put us in position to start delivering the several million smart meters in our backlog and prepares us for future smart meter demand.”  

The key reasons for moving forward with this automation project include the need to continue to improve efficiency and throughput
in order to reduce operational costs and keep up with demand. Over the past 10 years, Itron has increasingly invested in automation as it has seen it pay back in these terms over and over again.    

For higher-volume products, it is a necessity as some operations are not feasible to be performed manually at the rates required to meet projected customer demands.    

Often, highly repetitive, quick and sometimes awkward hand movements provide a health concern to employees, which this system has avoided almost completely.   

The processes that were transformed by this redesign focused on the manufacture and assembly of the CENTRON metrology platform. Distinct focus on manufacturing effectiveness was present at the conception of the service switch-based metering platform.  

The addition of an integrated switch was a new endeavor for Itron, and it was done in a very cost-effective manner from a design standpoint.   

This new product has functionality above and beyond that of any product of its kind in the past, and – in order to include such versatility, keep costs under control and provide capacities in line with demand – the most state-of-the-art technologies have been employed. The key was to follow through with a cost-effective, reliable and quick assembly process, which was achieved in part by attention to the role component parts play in not just product functionality, but achieving consistent and controllable assembly processes.    

With the product development team as active participants, the manufacturing team set about to deploy the right mix of automation and operator-assisted automation where product variability, repetition and volume made sense.   

Initial iterations of the product were built using labor-intensive, semi-automated process and progressed to a nearly fully automated assembly that will be used to satisfy high volume product output. The automated switch and metrology system is one of the finest examples of custom automation to be found in the industry.   

Partnering with ATS Automation, Itron has implemented this equipment, which assembles the components of the meter that function as the switch and the metrology in a very highly automated fashion. In this case, 24 components are handled and assembled with only two manual operations involved.    

Many state-of-the-art technologies are employed throughout this system. This includes the latest in cost-effective and high reliability, six-axis robots, automatically fed and operated stamping presses, vision systems, part feeding components, and proven controls. Of course, many clever custom fixtures and end-of-arm tooling were developed, as well.    

Not the least of the equipment is Itron’s proprietary calibration and switch testing equipment, operating solely on data passed to it through network-based systems with no operator intervention required.  

Many elements of the equipment have been employed to limit downtime as much as possible. Though a complete system, each station has separate independent control systems. This allows for an individual station to be offline, for maintenance or enhancement, while the other stations continue to perform without stoppage.    

This also allows individual station programs to be enhanced or im­proved without concern to avoid adversely affecting the operation of other stations down the line. More­over, each station has its own conveyor system and individual power, air and network connections.

American Made
Itron’s focus in the design and development of its American-made products is on continuous improvement and lean manufacturing. Tech­nologies automation is the central and enduring tool that enables both programs to achieve this goal. While the key technologies and assembly techniques remain unchanged from the more manual process to the automated version, there is massive reduction in the human handling of the material, such as loading machines with parts on a meter-by-meter basis and moving the meter station to station down the line. Not only does this lower cost from a labor point of view, but it allows for reductions in inventory, as well. 

Overall, many benefits al­ready have been achieved, and expected additional advantages continue to become a reality. Material handling reduction costs, both internally and by suppliers, has been reduced. Operator fatigue, carpal tunnel risks and manual operations were eliminated with this innovation.

Maintaining Margins
As the challenge of manufacturing electricity meters at a cost that is affordable for the customer, yet priced to maintain margins, intensifies, so too does the importance of looking for opportunities to reduce the total manufacturing cost of metering products.  

To identify all of the available opportunities for manufacturing cost reduction, strong leadership, meticulous attention to detail and an aggressive commitment to the continual improvement of quality production processes are required.   

In order to make the automation project successful, additional investigation was required to determine how best to integrate the automation technology with minimal disruption to the assembly process. This in­cludes taking a look at how this investment impacts maintaining ISO status, training the quality and manufacturing teams, and what additional equipment and resources will be needed to ensure the reliability of Itron’s electricity metering products will not be compromised.    

An entirely new assembly operation methodology was required to make the automation integration a success. The teams at Itron identified a new manufacturing production technique using the application of lean manufacturing principles that now offer yielded improvements in productivity, thereby strengthening the competitive position of the business.    

No other smart meter vendor in North America can match this manufacturing expertise. In addition to the unmatchable expertise, Itron prevails as the only smart meter manufacturer that designs, develops and distributes their meters in the United States. More importantly, customers that will be qualifying for smart grid spending funds made available by the stimulus package will be looking to purchase product from vendors that manufacture in the United States today.   

“Itron is the only smart meter vendor that has successfully maintained a consistent revenue base backed by a long-standing 120-year history of loyal customer commitments that enable it to keep building product in the United States,” says Bob Burks, vice president of operations. The fact that Itron has kept the manufacturing facility in the United States is indicative of the company’s commitment to the utility industry, its customers and communities impacted by the success of this business in
the nation.

Commitment to Quality
The facility’s commitment to the continual improvement of quality production processes is evident as Itron holds an established 45 percent of the electric meter market recognized by Frost & Sullivan, with successful shipments totaling more than 80 million in North America.    

The facility uses two manufacturing science techniques: lean manufacturing and focus factories. These techniques are the underlying strength in executing its processes.  

This organization has the ability to provide meters flexible in form and function, satisfying the requirements of different types of service installations as well as a wide range of meter-reading technologies. A strong emphasis on continuous improvement and the application of lean manufacturing principles has yielded significant improvements in productivity, quality and safety. 

Recent projects have included in­ventory reductions through kanban deployment, and a mature 5S program continues to yield waste reduction, workplace organization and safety improvements. Several recent automation projects have generated cost reductions in material and labor, together with significant product quality improvements.    

SPC is strategically deployed in order to ensure a high level of quality assurance throughout the operations. Employee experience is leveraged through empowered teams and classical problem-solving tools are implemented. A highly skilled and flexible work force, together with the high standards of supplier and inventory management, combine to support excellent standards of reactivity and customer service with industry-leading delivery times.   

The management team continues to identify opportunities for continuous improvement that will enhance profitability while still maintaining the company’s market-leading position. The integration of more electronic products has required a significant reorganization of traditional quality functions.    

Focusing on the inspection of parts has given way to automated verifications at each stage of the production process. Oconee Automation is at the forefront when Oconee measures quality while also integrating the use of highly consistent and precise parts and sub-assemblies. Previous quality control inspection criteria are now controlled within the process parameters. Data from each process is used to set the direction of problem solving teams and the continuous improvement cycle which helps minimize operator workmanship errors.   

The documentation of processes and the remaining workstations are a vital part of the new quality system. Conformance to the ISO 9000 standard ensures that software, hardware and work instructions are all controlled and administered in a professional manner. The commitment to employee training and education increases annually as the complexity of jobs increases.   

“In the past several years, all of our employees in the electronics manufacturing area have received many days of extensive training on the IPC-C-610 Standard for Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies, as well as the ANSI J-001 Standard Requirements for Soldered electrical and electronic assemblies.”   

The addition of activities at the Oconee facility increases the need for clear and precise documented quality procedures and systems.    

“The Oconee quality policy has always included a goal of excellence in supplying service to our customers,” says Mike Higgins, general manager of operations for Itron’s Oconee facility. “This will remain at the heart of everything we do now and in the future.”