Established in 1860 as Kentucky’s first public water provider, Louisville Water Company provides safe, high-quality drinking water to nearly one million people in north central Kentucky.
Challenge
Louisville Water wanted to transform and become a utility of the next generation, using a modern digital platform. It identified a digital transformation project to be the nexus of providing insights into all connected things for the organization, including customers, assets and work.
This digital transformation project presented multiple challenges:
- The service order and asset maintenance work systems were more than 30 years old, paper driven, inflexible, and manual. They did not offer customers with expected modern services.
- There were no mobile field solutions for mobile workers to communicate and record their work.
- Data was outdated and did not adequately represent field activities.
- Product support was limited, and no enhancements were available.
Solution
Louisville Water implemented KloudGin’s native mobile and single-scheduling engine and integrated it with ArcGIS.
The project was divided into three streams. Stream 1 was Louisville’s implementation of Oracle’s Work and Asset Management (WAM) 2.2. This supported plant and facilities maintenance. Crews recorded labor, collected asset surveys, and used GIS technology through KloudGin as part of their workflow.
Stream 2 was the expansion of WAM and KloudGin to the utility’s distribution facilities and workflows. Crews were enabled to easily review, create, and complete linear asset management work orders using the mobile application. Seamless workflows supported by the integration included performing valve tracing, investigating leaks, updating work locations, and identifying impacted services and customers.
Stream 3 implemented a single mobile scheduling system integrated with ArcGIS for work related to customer service, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), leaks, and assets.
“Enabling our field crews to manage all workflows (asset work, leaks, AMI, customer service, regulatory compliance) in a single mobile application online and offline and single scheduling engine is a game changer for us,” said Obe Everett, program manager of customer information systems at Louisville Water Company. “It allows us to capture critical information right at the source without removing complexity from our field crews. It eliminates multiple applications and devices.”
Results
ArcGIS and KloudGin integration increased efficiency and enabled staff to work smarter, not harder. Crews can now view work orders using the mobile app. As the work is completed, they can reference and glean data from the GIS map and update work activities. Louisville Water can better manage its assets — not only pipes, pumps, and tanks but also human assets to deliver high-quality service and value for its customers.
This digital transformation has helped Louisville Water include AMI-type work orders in its mobile solution and facilitated the business’s AMI meter-replacement project. This project helped drive timely billing and enhanced customer service capabilities, and has resulted in a 75% reduction in manual data entry time and a 65% overall reduction in paperwork with digitized forms.
Esri is exhibiting at WEFTEC booth #4026.
