Why Orbit · For Utilities
Not as a vendor. As a contractor doing the install. We've watched 100+ utilities run the same broken playbook. Then we built the software you needed.
DB Utility has been deploying water meters at utilities for two decades. Hundreds of contracts, across 21 states. We've installed at small co-ops with 5,000 meters and at municipals with 100,000+. Big regional water authorities. Tiny rural districts.
Every deployment, the same conversation:
"We have Cityworks. But the field guys use the spreadsheet. The dispatcher copies between the two. We don't really run reports because they're slow to pull."
Or some variation. Sometimes it's Lucity. Sometimes it's a homegrown Access database. Sometimes it's just paper. But the pattern was always the same: the system of record and the system the field crew actually used were different.
And the reports your council asked for were always painful. The audit log for that 2019 hydrant flush? Maybe an inspector's paper log. The cert tracker for your operators? A spreadsheet a retiring admin used to maintain. The opt-out list for resident SMS? A separate vendor with a separate login.
So we built Orbit for utilities. Work-order-first, not asset-management-bolted-on.
Custom WO types built around how your operation actually runs. Recurring service that schedules itself. Reports your council will read. Resident SMS in the same system as the WO. Cert tracking, prevailing wage, audit log — all under the same roof.
30 to 60 days from kickoff to first WO. Not nine months. Available via state purchasing cooperatives.
Today at most utilities
The expensive one is the system of record. The middle one is the dispatcher's workaround. The cheap one is what the field crew actually fills out. None of them agree.
Cityworks AMS
System of record
WOs Master.xlsx
What the dispatcher uses
Paper WOs
What the field crew uses
Three places to update. Two ways to be wrong.
After Orbit
Dispatch creates it. Field tech closes it on a phone. QA approves it. The council export pulls from it. The audit log records every change. One record, one history.
Annual Flush · 142 Cedar Ave
Volume flushed
1,240 gal
Static pressure
62 psi
Residual
58 psi
Audit trail
What makes us different
Cityworks started as GIS-based asset management. WO management was added later, and it shows. Orbit was built around the WO from day one.
We own the configuration. You provide a project owner. No "professional services" empire of consultants. State coop pricing available.
PWA on iPad or phone. Offline-tolerant. Geofenced clock-in. Foreman finishes the WO in the truck — not after they get back to the office.
Ask Orbit: plain-English questions over your data. Pull a council report by talking. Photo QA/QC on every completion.
DB Utility has installed at 100+ utilities. We know what the inspector asks for. We know what the council wants. We know what the field crew won't put up with.
We'll talk to your team like we've been there. Because we have.