Portfolio > Text Messaging Solutions

Client - Selwyn District Council

This case study is a remote alarm system using Alchemy's SMS (text messaging) gateway. It provides a monitoring and response capability for a local authority's water and waste water systems.

The System

Alchemy's Datashed SMS gateway is critical for alarm management and response at Selwyn District Council.

Selwyn use the Datashed gateway to channel alarms, encoded in text messages, from their water and waste water monitoring systems. Alarm messages go from Selwyn's system via Datashed to field operative’s cell phones. The operatives acknowledge and respond to these messages on a 24 x 7 basis.

Features of the system include:

• network independent - works with Telecom and Vodafone
• messages sent in real time, as alarms occur
• message logging and tracking, for auditing and diagnosis
• integration between SMS messaging and a web application.

Benefits

Providing an SMS solution for alarm monitoring has benefits of:

• low cost of operation for a critical monitoring system
• faster response times to alarms as notifications are sent directly to cell phones of the field operatives
• increased mobility for council staff, as the alarm messages don't have to go to a centralised location
• operatives get better information in the field as messaging allows interrogation of the monitoring devices raising the alarm
• better auditing of alarms and responses via the logging capability.