CITRUS HEIGHTS WATER DISTRICT (CHWD)
	IT Planning and Turnkey Implementation
	CHWD supplies retail water to a rapidly growing suburb of Sacramento, California

Issue
As a result of legislative requirements to implement consumption-based metered billing, CHWD needed to assess and overhaul significant portions of their existing information infrastructure, including financial system, meters, customer billing and information systems, and maintenance systems. They wanted to accomplish all this with no increase in current staffing levels. CHWD wanted to make these major investments in technology in the most effective manner possible and align them with the business objectives of the District.

Solution
Westin assisted CHWD in developing a five-year information technology master plan (ITMP). Considering the legislative requirements and the District’s business needs, resources and funding capability, the ITMP developed a sustainable and carefully sequenced series of technical initiatives. These initiatives included:

• New software applications for finance, customer billing and information, maintenance management and GIS
• Updating utility billing to support bimonthly, consumption-based bills
• Upgrading customer information to integrate meters and meter maintenance with customer service requests
• Integrations between finance, billing and maintenance systems to better track asset costs
• Changing maintenance processes to include meters and integration with customer service
• Adding spatial data as the core integration between customer service and maintenance activities
• Implementing mobile computing to enable field personnel to get real-time information about problems
• Upgrading network infrastructure to support increases in District-wide data communications

Westin was the prime contractor on the turnkey implementation and integration of all the program initiatives identified above.

During the 18-month implementation, Westin provided project management, requirements definition, software selection, vendor management procurement of all hardware and software, business process design and implementation, system integration, report development and user training. The project also includes five years of maintenance and support services. The implementation was sequenced by Westin based on technical prerequisites, user impacts, and CHWD’s capacity to adopt and incorporate new processes. Core to the rapid implementation was the design and implementation of a utility-centric geodatabase to support integration of other applications.

 

Outcome CHWD followed the plan outlined in the ITMP and completed full implementation and integration of finance, CIS, CMMS and GIS within 18 months. The ITMP provided specific guidelines for a fast-track turnkey implementation that assured that infrastructure was ready, waste was minimal, applications were integrated, and resources were available to make things happen when and where they needed to be throughout the program. Their fast-track turnkey methodology delivered quick results and minimized the time from planning to full system operation.