Anglian Water Transforms Operations, Customer Service

When Anglian Water decided to implement an Operations Management Centre (OMC) to transform their business performance, they called on CSC. Their goals – improved efficiency, greater customer service, increased pro-activity and better management of risk – were part of the most radical transformation in working practices AW had ever implemented.

Fast delivery of the technology was vital to the success of the OMC. The operational systems had to be delivered in only 10 months and then rolled out over the next year.

Meeting challenges head-on

“In the context of complex business requirements and a challenging IT environment, we knew the demands on CSC, in terms of providing an integral and rapid IT solution, were high," says AW Water Director Paul Valleley.

"The CSC team met the challenge head-on. The solution implemented provided AW with the opportunity to make the significant operational improvements envisaged."

It was vital that AW improve their customer satisfaction index score as well as reduce their 60,000-hour work backlog. AW also wanted to integrate their geographically dispersed organisation and give their workforce access to real-time information, something that could not be achieved with pen and paper.

Empowered, committed consultants

To meet the challenging timescales of this project CSC proposed the use of its laboratory (lab) approach to systems implementation. The lab is a collaborative environment that enables the project lifecycle to be reduced. Within the lab, CSC focused the team on the elements that would deliver the most return on investment.

CSC handpicked the team of empowered and committed consultants, who understood the programme brief and the impact this change would have on AW as a business.

The IT project wasn’t just about applications delivery. CSC designed, procured, built and deployed the supporting £1m pound infrastructure. Several million pounds worth of “Toughbooks” were also given to engineers with user-friendly applications. Each laptop is connected to a mobile phone network, which allows the engineer to contact the centre from their home or out on remote locations.

The OMC project went live on time and the tools have been rolled out across all work centres. OMC staff are now rapidly redeployed to carry out emergency work. All the details of the job are transferred to the system in real-time, which improves the engineers’ safety and security.

The mobile solution allows work orders to be sent to the engineer two hours ahead of time. Time saved from not filling in paperwork and unnecessary travel allows the engineers to take on extra callouts each day.

AW can now monitor customer satisfaction very closely based on delivery performance, jobs in backlog, number of chase calls and customer complaints. These elements are monitored as part of AW’s customer satisfaction index. Since the OMC has been implemented, AW have managed to drive the index score from 66 in October 2006 to an average of 93 since 2007.

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