Transforming engineering and construction for better customer experience

The challenge

A municipal electric utility was struggling to keep up with its rapidly growing new construction residential and business customer base and needed help improving the customer experience.

The utility was facing several systemic inefficiencies—including numerous handoffs, dropped tasks, and underutilized tools—resulting in inaccurate estimates that led to underbilling customers’ CIAC by nearly 40%.

The solution

E Source conducted a current state assessment for the utility, identifying areas of improvement throughout the existing project life cycle. E Source then facilitated a series of workshops to alleviate existing gaps and inefficiencies, including a:

• 12-week organizational change management program to standardize processes for properly using its technologies and develop reports to measure and track improvement
• Reorganization of the customer design and delivery groups within the utility to better support new customers
• Two-year, five-phased approach to gradually update labor rates, overheads, and labor hours to bill for CIAC more accurately without sudden financial impact on developers and builders

The results

The restructuring and process improvements generated $60 million in CIAC revenue. They also helped halve overtime and wasted truck rolls, generating significant savings.

The utility now conducts regular audits to sustain the implemented changes. The project helped E Source develop a long-term working relationship with the organization, extending to further engagements for Transformer Partial Energization, Natural Gas Growth Strategy, Material Supply Strategy and Utility Service Agreement—Developer Infrastructure Expansion.