Electric Utility Company - Ontario, Canada, A Case Study

Hydro One (Toronto) is one of the 10 largest electric utility companies in North America. The company, which is wholly owned by the Government of Ontario, generated $4.1 B in revenues in 2003. The company’s transmission and distribution systems are valued at $11.3B.

Field technicians were handwriting information onto paper forms when they conducted inspections of towers, poles, and other transmission equipment. Data entry clerks had difficulty reading the handwritten reports and sometimes entered incorrect information into the company’s database. Hydro One has equipped 490 field technicians with iX104 tablet computers from Xplore Technologies Corp. The rugged tablets are able to withstand immersion in water and drops to pavement. Since technicians enter data by selecting from pick lists on the tablets, the company is improving the accuracy of its database.