CITRUS HEIGHTS WATER DISTRICT (CHWD)
	Planning, selection and implementation of a customer information and utility billing application (CIS)
	CHWD supplies retail water to a rapidly growing suburb of Sacramento, California.

Issue
As a result of legislative changes and resource conservation initiatives, CHWD needed to change from flat rate, semiannual billing of residential water customers to bimonthly metered consumption-based billing. The existing information technology infrastructure did not support either bimonthly consumption-based billing processes or the associated increase in workflow and data management. CHWD needed to define and implement a solution (process; technology; applications) with no increases in staffing levels.

Solution
To address the need for improved IT applications and the significant change in billing processes, Westin developed an Information Technology Master Plan (ITMP) for CHWD. The ITMP focused on leveraging technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness throughout the District. The ITMP outlined a series of business process, technical and infrastructure initiatives designed to support significant changes in utility billing and customer service business processes, as well as associated initiatives in other business and infrastructure areas. Jointly, Westin and CHWD identified and documented District-wide customer service and utility billing requirements and conducted a software selection process of commercially available CIS software.

During the implementation of CIS, Westin provided project management, facilitated and documented business process reviews, procured software and hardware and performed CIS implementation and integration. Westin worked with the CIS vendor and CHWD to define configuration requirements for application setup, perform training, establish security requirements, and create CHWD reports from the new application.

Westin integrated the core applications to make it easier to manage key customer service and utility billing processes with existing staffing levels. One such integration automatically transfers appropriate service requests from the CIS and creates a service request in the CMMS. The service request alerts the appropriate work crew in the field. CHWD crews view real-time information about service orders and work orders on mobile, truck-mounted computers. From their trucks, they access maps that can highlight the service location area (location; address; related utility infrastructure) and related service history for that area. Crews can see all service requests and work orders in an area, further optimizing the efficiency of dispatching.

Outcome
The implemented customer information system supports bimonthly consumption-based billing, customer analyses, improved response times for customer problem resolution, and automated processes for CHWD workers. The new system provides:

• A comprehensive history of customer and location service call data easily accessible to office and field staff
• A more efficient billing and collections process through outsourcing of various tasks
• Additional revenue collection capabilities and faster collection times
• Reduced amount of effort required to present customer problems to the field crew responsible for investigating them
• Improved customer communication resulting in better customer service
• The ability to properly manage a fully metered environment without staff increases