ABSTRACT
Water is provided by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the city of Flint for wholesale to the Genesee County Drain Commissioner's Division of Water and Waste Services. The Division, acting in the capacity of county agent, provides retail and/or wholesale service to ten townships and six cities through a system of individual and master meters. Water and Sewer Deparment inventory is maintained by a system of descriptive tags. This chapter describes the cost savings and efficiencies that may be realized by choosing an automated billing system, maximizing the benefits obtainable from a combination system of mini- and microcomputers and solid state meter reading devices. Medium sized utility offices have generally required the speed and memory capacity of a mainframe computer for processing data, printing of bills and report generation. In early 1984, the Division's Data Processing Department examined the feasibility of downsizing the existing mainframe computer and replacing it with an IBM 36 microcomputer.
