United Illuminating Co. in New Haven is using software from an Ohio company for an automated system that calls out repair crews after normal business hours, Columbus Business First reports.
UI flipped the switch on Arcos Inc.’s automated system July 20. It’s a three-year deal valued at six figures over the length of the contract, an Arcos spokesman told the newspaper on its Web site.
UI provides electricity to more than 324,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in southwestern Connecticut. It has about 1,000 workers.
A release from Arcos said UI is using Arcos’ software to replace a system in which supervisors placed telephone calls to alert electric substation and line workers about after-hours power outages. The new automated system is designed to reduce the time it takes to send workers to repair problems, with the ability to fire off voice or text messages to hundreds of employees in a matter of seconds.
The release said the new system will call out workers in the utility company’s construction operations and meter services departments and call center, transmission and substation electricians and overhead linesmen.
Headed by company founder and President Mitch McLeod, Arcos has landed seven major utility customers in the past year and has 44 overall. It has contracts with about 40 percent of the top 50 utility companies on the Fortune 500 list.
