Best CIS Implementation

Level I Class

National Grid modified their existing Customer/1, following the acquisition of four electric utilities, to support the New England operating companies, meet four states’ regulatory requirements, and modify the existing in-house development and production environment to support the customization effort. Overall system performance following conversion improved despite a doubled customer base and dramatically increased interfaces.

Level II Class

Garland Power & Light upgraded their CIS, creating a single system to support five city services. They made citizen information and service requests available via the Internet; created an accurate accounts receivable aging; and a web-based system with dashboard, the project went live on time and on budget.

Innovation in Extending a Legacy System

Level I Class

EPCOR made drastic changes to extend the life of a 1994 CIS system, retaining the UIS application and re-hosting it on a cheaper platform. EPCOR created of FUSE (Future Utility Systems Environment),a direct “lift & shift” of the application. The largest individual IT project ever undertaken by EPCOR was on time, under budget, no disruption in billing quality or timeliness, and no impact on customers.

Level II Class

Artesian leveraged their investment in a GIS system to improve the meter shop scheduling system and implement mobile radio-read AMR – without additional capital or outside resources. They achieved a 50% improvement in efficiency of the meter technician department plus savings of $32,000 - $80,000 a month by not sub-contracting AMR installation.

Innovation in Customer Service

Level I Class

PHI partnered with Tampa Electric  

Pepco Holdings and Tampa Electric Company led a cross-functional team from seven SEE member companies to design MARS, a mutual assistance routing system, to provide call center support in a virtual environment, making access to additional trained CSR staff possible, and allowing requesting and responding utilities to reduce costs by assigning resources as necessary. This new standard for emergency response includes the infrastructure needed to protect the operational security of participating utilities.

Level II Class

Addressing an increase in call volume, Vermont Gas implemented multiple customer service initiatives that resulted in record high customer satisfaction scores, decreased receivables, reduced costs and increased revenue. Keeping the initiatives simple to implement created high payback potential with ROI in excess of $100,000 annually plus the intangible value of increased customer satisfaction.