PNG Power - First Customer in the Asia/Pacific Region to upgrade to Suprima 3
30.09.03

PNG Power are the largest user of Landis + Gyr Cashpower Prepayment meters in the Asia/Pacific region with an installed base of 23,000 meters served by 10 vending stations.

Last month Martin Saville and Garth Mickell from ADR in New Zealand and Mike Callaghan from Landis and Gyr in South Africa visited Papua New Guniea to perform an upgrade from the original DOS based Prima system to the latest release of Windows based Suprima Software and to upgrade all the PC hardware.

Suprima 3 running under Windows 2000 offers a new style of user interface similar to Outlook, easier registration of customers, instant statistics and quick view reports on customers. It provides a solid platform for features such as Transaction servers for on-line vending using Powervend 2 terminals or e-Vend terminals using web browsers.

Currently meters are installed all around the Port Moresby region and vending stations are installed in both PNG Power offices and Stop’n Shop Supermarkets. Power interruptions are common and may occur several times a day and for extended periods so most businesses have backup generators. Additional protection was provided by APC Uninterruptable Power Supplies to condition the supply to the vending PC’s and to ensure carry-over while the backup generator kicked-in.

Plans are in place to implement email dumping and merging of customers and transactions between the Master and remote PC’s and a wireless infrastructure is being considered to support this. In the shorter term, data transfer is accomplished using USB flash drives which provide a  simple, reliable and ample storage capacity to transfer the files involved.

Over the two week period of the installation, PNG Power staff were trained in operation and maintenance of the system. A return visit is scheduled after a couple of months in order to implement additonal functionality and to re-inforce training carried out during the initial visit.

Port Moresby has a reasonable level of infrastructure, however visitors need to exercise some caution. Much of the population have a subsistence lifestyle and crime is reportedly rife. Having said that, we did not experience any problems in this regard and found everyone to be very friendly and hospitable.

From our visit, the most dangerous aspect of Port Moresby was travelling on the roads, where a total lack of any form of signs, road-markings or rules resulted in chaos. Combined with pot-holes the size of the Grand-Canyon it is amazing that we did not actually have any serious accidents.

We would like to thank the Project Manager at PNG Power, Edmond Periera for acting as our host during our visit.