For this specific project, an application was developed, which calculates the electricity consumption tariff.

• Problem

After being informed by the company, which cooperates with Depia Automations, a record of the problems was made and in collaboration with its managers and the software department of Depia Automations, specific issues were identified.

The main issue was the need for the company managers to be able to regularly monitor and also calculate the total power consumption. Until the given moment this possibility was not possible, which significantly affected the reliability and accuracy of the company’s general system and the management and use of units and machines. In general, the efficiency and economy of the processes could undoubtedly be improved, which was the primary goal of each company.

• Planning

The experienced programmers and developers of Depia Automations, after recording and sharing, in collaboration with the respective managers and company staff, the above identified issues, started the development planning of the electricity consumption tariff calculation application. A development plan was drawn up, according to which the company’s employees, through our application, would be able to monitor the electricity consumption of the entire company’s space, but also of each of the machines’ meters separately. In addition, they will have the possibility to export a complete and specialized electricity consumption invoice, whenever they wish during the month, so that they know what they have consumed and make the corresponding decisions. To achieve the above, our application would contain multiple tools, each providing different but equally important information and capabilities. When a modern programming language, is chosen, the code development plan for each tool was carefully designed. The general goal was to develop an application that would have a complete supervision of power consumption.

• Implementation

Since the software development planning was completed, taking into account all the factors, we proceeded to develop the code in C#. The specific language was chosen because it is a modern, widely used, recognized and easily extensible programming language. When the application was configured, as said above, it was necessary to export the consumption data automatically. For this reason, it was deemed necessary to configure a database adapted to the needs of the program, as well as the machines of each company, and to connect it with the software under development in order to receive data directly from the machines. Simultaneously with the aforementioned implementations, regular visits were made to the company to familiarize the operators with the use of the application, but also to receive feedback for its continuous improvement.

• Result

Now, having a modern and specialized power consumption monitoring tool with dynamic capabilities, it has become possible to maximize the efficiency of all the company’s processes, since now we can know any information related to power consumption. The data and measurements come and are displayed automatically in our application, extracting a complete energy consumption invoice, for any month, and at any time within the month, we wish, giving the possibility to communicate the electricity consumption that has taken place up to the given time but also the exact billing amount. The risk of incorrect measurements has been eliminated, which guarantees maximum reliability and safety for every process. In conclusion, the overall process became more efficient, maximizing the economy of the system and the company in general.