Information and Communication Technology for Water Utility Management. Best practices and experience sharing among ACWUA members

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ACWUA’s 4

th

_{Best Practices Conference}

Water and Wastewater Utilities Reform (Changes and Challenges)

Sharm Al Sheikh, Egypt

December 2011

Information and Communication Technology for Water

Utility Management

Best practices and experience sharing among ACWUA

members

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Background



Creation of the GIZ Working Group “Information and Communication Technology

for Water Utility Management” during the Mediterranean Environmental Network

MEN-REM conference in February 2009



Initial discussions were held between GIZ Water Programmes from Jordan,

Lebanon, Syria and Yemen



Main objective was to create a forum to for discussions and sharing of best

practices



Rely on an ICT expert to assist in the technical work, and share cost between

different GIZ Water Programmes in participating countries



Extend to other countries through existing networks such as ACWUA



Expected outcomes cover the following:



Best practices



Experience sharing



Reasons for failure/success

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ICT and Water Utility Reform



Most of the participating countries are undertaking reform

measures in the water sector



ICT is becoming one of the important management and

control tools in the implementation of the reform



Obstacles and challenges were faced by Water Utilities due to

their limited experience in some areas



Utilities suffer from the lack of qualified Human Resources to

deal with proper IT solutions

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Objectives and Scope



Document the different ICT tools used in utility management in different countries.



Conduct field visits to selected water utilities in participating countries to assess the existing

ICT tools used for utility management (accounting, customer management, GIS, SCADA

systems, asset management, etc.). The selection of the water utilities should be based on

well defined criteria discussed and approved by the different water programmes.



Analyze the results of the assessment of IT systems (costs for procurement and

maintenance, vendor support, user friendliness, etc.) and prepare a draft report including

major findings to be discussed with the group members.



Assist in creating collaboration mechanisms between WG member countries and ACWUA.



Present findings and next steps during a WG meeting.

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Deliverables



Inventory form for a proper assessment of ICT tools in participating

countries.



List of the main ICT tools in place for utility management in participating

countries.



Assessment report highlighting elements of the three categories of

outcomes mentioned under the ToR of the WG (best practices, experience

sharing and reasons for success/failures).



Presentation of findings/results during a WG meeting.

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Approach

Design

Site Visit

Analyse

Report

• Prepare inventory

form

• Discuss form with

WG members

• Finalize Form

• Disseminate form

• Collect Results and

Prepare for Site

Visits

• Conduct Site Visits

• Verify Information

• Assess ICT Practices

and Identify Success

Story

• Communicate initial

findings

• Analyse Results

• Develop Countries

Specific Reports

• Disseminate Report

for each country

Review

• Finalize Counties

Reports

• Prepare main report

and Presentation

• Finalize Main Report

• Present Findings at

ACWUA and

MEN-REM Meetings

• Close Project

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Factors Used in The Assessment

• IT Governance Status and Challenges

• IT Operations maturity against international standards

• IT System Planning, Acquisition and Implementation

Approach

• Impact of the IT systems on the utility operations and

saving models

• IT staff needs and challenges towards improving IT level of

service

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Key Findings and Results

IT Governance

• It has been clear that lack of IT governance is a common finding across all

utilities. The lack of IT governance impacts the investment of any

organization in its IT systems and increases the risk of investment and

benefits losses in addition to the increase of effort either in remediating the

implementation gaps or trying to cope with incurred benefit or investment

losses.

• Similarly, the lack of IT strategy and master plan has been evident. Where

solutions are either acquired or inherited to address immediate business

requirement or to automate a point solution without any comprehensive

planning to address future requirements, integration issues and business

process improvement.

• The above findings deprive any utility from achieving modern IT system

advantage, increase customer satisfaction and more over it negatively

impacts investment in such systems.

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Key Findings and Results

IT Operations maturity against international standards

• Clearly, IT operations are still being performed in ad-hoc manner, lack of

documented operation procedures that are inline with international best

practices are evident.

• Adherence to international standards in IT operations ensures the

integrity, confidentiality and availability of information and information

systems. In addition, lack of adherence to international standards and best

practices negatively impacts IT systems effectiveness and efficiency

• IT operations that are maintained in human resources own knowledge

would increase the risk on utilities in case of resources departure specially

that the IT sector is in need of resources and the private sector attracts

staff due to their financials ability.

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Key Findings and Results

IT System Planning, Acquisition and Implementation Approach

• Lack of proper IT governance and the rush to address business

requirement and the lack of business process owners involvement in the

system requirements and acquisition phase has been a prime reason for

acquiring and implementing solutions that address a specific business

need without linking the system to business values and objectives such

as NRW reduction, increase customer satisfaction and others.

• Most of the IT systems procured have ended in being trapped in silos

without minimum and sometimes no integration with other systems that

may enhance management reports, operations enhancement and

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Key Findings and Results

Impact of the IT systems on the utility operations and saving

models

• Impact on NRW, increased customer satisfaction, ROI and NPV has been

a major assessment factors while procuring IT systems. Benefits on the

utility operations have not been assessed or planned prior to systems

acquisition rather realized post-implementation.

• The post-implementation benefit assessment has been realized as a

result of the staff and organization experience with the system; even

more, none of those benefits have been utilized to further enhance the

operation model or to further increase the savings.

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Key Findings and Results

IT staff needs and challenges towards improving IT level of

service

• The lack of advanced, well-planned and modern training for IT staff has

been a key requirement for all visited utilities.

• Moreover, the IT unit is usually placed under the administration/finance or

any other support organization that limits the IT communication channels

and shall be connected directly with the utility key management for easier

communication and increased flexibility

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Success Stories in Yemen

Sana’a Water & Sanitation Local

Company (SANA-LC)

Established: Jan-2008 Number of Employees: 1,137 Management: 18 , Technical: 351, Administration: 502, Others: 266 Remote Office: 6

IT Staff: 25, More than 100PC in place

Aden Water & Sanitation Local

Company (Aden-LC)

Number of Employees: 1,853

Management: 43, Technical: 1555, Administration: 255

Remote Office: 8

Water Subs.: 108,957, WW Subs: 94,640

IT Staff: 11, 120PC in Place, IT Budget:50K Euro

Success Story

• Sana’a Water and Sanitation Local Company

• Domain: Maintenance Management

• IT Solution: DCMMS

• The implementation of DCMMS has been a

successful model for the harmony between IT and

Business Process owner in addition to the impact

of management support to operations staff to

endorse and support the system implementation.

Among the key benefits that Sana-LC has realized

were:

• Reduction of maintenance costs and repair

time

• Service requests have an upper limit of 30

minutes to be closed

• Reduction in NRW by lowering maintenance

costs and identifying/verification of

illegal/existing subscribers’ connection and

associated levies.

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Success Stories in Lebanon

Success Story

• South Lebanon Water Establishment

• Domain: Backoffice / Financial Accounting

• IT Solution: ERP - JDEdwards

• The implementation of JD-Edwards ERP has been a

success story at SLWE. The implementation has been

strongly supported by SLWE management and has been

enhanced by the proper involvement of private sector to

address gap areas in order to ensure system

sustainability and efficiency. Among the key benefits were:

• Initial savings in inventory has been noticed,

improved business process, integrated billing with

the ERP package.

• Established a single-set of truth with a centralized

management database for SLWE management, so

information is electronically integrated and does not

reside isolated in separate systems

• Ongoing efforts at SLWE to modernized their

financial business processes to meet international

best practices

Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water

Establishment (BMLWE)

Established: 2005

Water Subs.: ~ 500,000 Remote Offices:1 6 IT Staff: 11

Bekaa Water Establishment (BWE)

Established: 2005

Water Subs.: ~75,000 Remote Offices: 11 IT Staff: 2

South Lebanon Water Establishment

(SLWE)

Number of Employees: 240

Management: 18, Technical: 165, Administration: 60, Remote Offices: 14 Water Subs.: ~140,000

IT Staff: 5, 60PC in Place

North Lebanon Water Establishment

(NLWE)

Established: 2005 Water Subs.: ~110,000 Remote Offices: 12

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Subscribers

Balqa Zarqa Madaba 62524 128979 22459 32537 92794 9527

Employees

Blaqa Zarqa Madaba

Management 15 8 8

Technical 479 424 165

Admin 287 224 88

Others 5 5 6

Remote Offices: 30

Success Stories in Jordan

Middle Governorates

Success Story

• Madaba Water Utility

• Domain: Subscribers Management

• IT Solution: SCA and RDS

• Along with the RDS, the SCA application has been

able to improve the following key area

• Improved Non-Revenue Water by identification

illegal connections,

• Improved cash flow and positively improving the

billing and collection cycles.

• Improved new customer experience by expediting

the response time and quality.

• The implementation of SCA has provided the

subscribers department with immediate

information due to the integration between SCA

and the billing system. This represents the

importance of electronically integrating critical

system in order to provide business users with

immediate, accurate and business related manner

that not only improve customer experience but

also impacts the organization performance.

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Success Stories in Syria

Success Story

• General Establishment For Drinking Water and

Sewerage Aleppo

• Domain: Subscribers Management

• IT Solution: SCA and RDS

• Implementing a well-managed GIS function has

achieved important results to GEDWSA business

including but not limited to the following:

• Generation of accurate, timely and effective

customer location and networking reporting

system.

• Modernized the business process and

effectively automated the process rather than

used as a data-entry tool/repository.

• Increase customer satisfaction and service

delivery.

• Avoid duplication of data and illegal connection

which will improve Non-Revenue water.

• Connection the decentralize unite like network

division, economic units with the Headquarter to

exchange the GIS Data and e-mails.

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Key Lessons Learned

IT

Solution

Business Area Key Lessons Learned

DCMMS Maintenance Management

• Proper, planned and well managed involvement of the business staff is key to successful system’s implementation

• Alignment and enhancement/redesign of the business processes has to be performed in a balanced manner and in alliance to the system’s feature or process model.

• Persistence and change management while implementing DCMMS is to be noted as a major factor in the successful implementation of the system

• Thinking globally and beyond one system implementation allowed Sana’a-LC to gain additional value by identifying subscriber’s levies and linking it with service request fulfillment.

• Systems are owned by the business people at any organization and therefore their active involvement is imperative. SCA & RDS Subscribers Management, Route Management

• Proper staff planning and training prior to system implementation • Adopt a phased implementation approach

• Ensure staff availability and commitment to system implementation • Emphasis on system usage and reports delivery by the organization staff

• Accept the challenge and perform a controlled migration from the manual to the new system Financial Accounting System Financial Management

• Proper staff planning and training prior to system implementation • Adopt a phased implementation approach

• Ensure staff availability and commitment to system implementation • Emphasis on system usage and reports delivery by the organization staff

• Accept the challenge and perform a controlled migration from the manual to the new system

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High Level Impact Analysis

Domain Factors Impact

Governance • ROI, NPV & TCO • Readiness

• Change Management • Benefit Analysis

• Loss of investment

• Isolated system and poorly endorsed by business

• Unmatched business process to application, increased complexity and user resistance

• Lack of support by senior management

• Poor data quality and lack of accurate reports to support business needs • Data duplication, inconsistent multiple data from multiple sources

Int’l Standards • Compliance • Risk Analysis

• Poor data quality and lack of rigid security • Increased maintenance and incident costs • Increased outages

• Increased zero-day attacks and lack of system availability • Financial and data losses

Enterprise Architecture • People • Information • Technology • Business

• Proper staff planning and training prior to system implementation • Poor data quality and duplication of information

• Poor effectiveness or efficiency of the business

• Lack of integration between system that yields to increase maintenance and operations costs

• Poor Performance of IT Systems IT Staff • Readiness

• Knowledge

• Increased resistance to change

• Increased maintenance and operations costs • Lack of support

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IT & Water

• How does IT impact a water utility profitability & Business

Operations?

• What is the impact of information on water utility

business?

• What is the impact of IT on customer satisfaction and

confidence?

• Does IT impact critical KPIs such as NRW?

• What is the need for Governance, Compliance and

Readiness models in Water utility?

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IT & Water

Direct Costs

• Software Licenses Cost.

• Implementation Cost.

• Hardware Costs.

• Network connectivity costs

• Training Costs.

• Documentation Development.

• Data Conversion

• ROI & NPV

• 3 Years Recurring Costs.

• Any other incurred costs.

Indirect Costs

• Staffing time and effort required by

the establishment.

• Readiness costs that relates to

data preparation

Tangible Benefits

• Reduction in Non-Revenue Water

• Energy savings

• Fuel Savings

• Inventory savings

• Reduction of Arrears, customer dues

• Improved cash flow

• Paper, communication, saving

• Revenue increase

• Optimization of expenses

Non-Tangible Benefits

• Process improvements and

enhancement.

• Improved people (staff) management

and efficiency

• Improved safety levels

• Improved planning and

decision-making

• Reduction of outages

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Relation of Water Governance & IT

Economic

Social

Political

Consensus Oriented Accountable

Transparent

Responsive

Effective & Efficient Equitable

Participatory

Complies with Local Laws

“Water Governance is the set of systems that controls the

decision making process with regard to water management

and water service delivery.”

The EMPOWER approach

“IT Governance is a subset

discipline of Corporate Governance

focused on information technology

(IT) systems and their performance

and risk management”

Wikipedia

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The Relation

• Integrated Management

• Participatory Process

• Transparency

• A Focus on Poverty Reduction

EMPOWER

• Fresh water is a finite and

vulnerable resource, essential

to sustain life, development

and the environment.

• Water development and

management should be based

on a participatory approach,

involving users, planners and

policy makers at all levels.

• Women play a central part in

the provision, management and

safeguarding of water.

• Water has an economic value

in all its competing uses, and

should be recognized as an

economic good.

Dublin Principle

• Full public participation

• Multisectoral approach to water

management

• Sustainable water use

Agenda 21 - UNCED

• Quality of life

• Shared responsibility (between

governments)

• Municipal government

leadership

• Adaptability

• User pay

• Maintenance and rehabilitation

• Continuous improvement

• Partnerships

Federation of Canadian

Municipalities

CoBIT

• Strategic Alignment

• Value Delivery

• Resource Management

• Risk Management

• Performance Management

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Systems Impact / Value

Business Function/Area System(s) Measurable Benefits Non-Measurable Benefits

Water/Wastewater Network Planning and Management

• Network Modeling, Analysis and Simulation

• Demand Management

• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) • Telemetry

• Meter and Flow Management

• Reduction in NRW • Energy savings • Material Savings • Manage and Optimize

capital costs

• Streamline Process

• Automate model and drawing updates

• Promote Reuse • Develop designs using

integrated capabilities

• Aggregate project information from multiple sources

• Improve Quality • Integrate design and

geographic information • Manage project and design

information standards • Improve water reliability and

efficiency of the water and wastewater networks

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Systems Impact / Value

Operations Support • Asset Maintenance and

Management

• Geographic Information System (GIS)

• Fleet Management

• Project Management and Accounting

• Reduction of NRW

• Energy savings (pumping costs)

• Effective prioritization of project spending

• Reduction in

maintenance, fuel and operations costs of vehicles

• Reduction of plant and pump outages and failures

• Better management of maintenance crews • Switching to preventive

maintenance

• Optimized maintenance costs • Optimized service and

response time

• Optimized supply chain by implementing safety inventory levels and material optimization • Better decision-making for

rehabilitating projects

• Fuel savings by optimizing crew shuttle time and routes

• Improved safety levels

Customer Management • Billing Management • Customer Relationship

Management

• Complaint Management • Customer Survey and

Address Management

• NRW reduction

• Cash on hand and the risk of collection • Readings’ estimation • Decrease in Arrears

• Reengineering of billing and customer information processes like:

• Improved customer service • Simple and clear procedures • Enforcing right procedures • Improved Billing frequency

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Systems Impact / Value

Backoffice • Accounting Management • Fixed Assets Management • Supply Chain Management

(i.e. Inventory Management, Procurement and Vendor Management)

• Human Resource Management

• Document Management • Vendor Management • E-Mail and Collaboration

Tools

• Reduction in inventory losses

• Procurement Savings • Reduction in paper usage • Optimized budgets and

budget savings • Reduction in NRW

• Optimal allocation of money • Better planning and

performance

• Increased employee motivation and productivity

• Effective succession planning • Efficient allocation of training

resources

• Timely follow-up and full audit trail with tracking for activities • Instant reporting tools and

tracking of financial expenditures

• Revenue optimization through better portfolio management • Optimization of the irrigated

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Systems Impact / Value

Business and Strategy Management • Business Intelligence • Financial Analysis • Tariff Management • Management Information System (MIS)

• Making more informed & better planning &

operational decisions • Increased individual

accountability for management actions • Avoiding the costs of bad

decisions based on multiple unreliable data sources

• Saving of establishment leadership’s time

• Saving the cost of

processing & maintaining redundant data stores

• Gaining comprehensive understanding of the

establishment’s performance, at multiple levels

• Alignment of establishment’s objectives with local and national agenda

• Increasing transparency of information

• Monitoring and controlling data quality and integrity

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The Need for a Standard Model

Network Mgmt DCMMS

AMM Accounting Billing SCM •Data Elements •When •What •How •Error Checking

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The Model

IT Blueprint

Process

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11.12.2011 Seite Seite ۳۰۳۰ SCADA Network Modelling Meter Flow Demand Management Planning Layer Billing CRM Complaint Management Customer Survey Financial System Supply Chain Fixed Assets Register Human Resource Management Document Management Financial Analysis Business

Intelligence Tariff Back-office Layer Fleet Management GIS Maintenance Management Project Accounting Operations Support Customer Management

Business and Strategy Management

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11.12.2011 Seite Seite ۳۱۳۱ Backoffice Applications En gi neer in g an d Pl an ni ng Op er at ion s S up por t Customer Management Receivable s •Assets Info •Inventory Info •Maintenance Costs •Fleet Costs •Project Costing •Customer’s Maintenance Operation Request and Status •Customer GIS Coordinates

•Customer GIS Coordinates

•Project Data

•Asset Operations Status •Asset Register Info

•Inventory Planning •Demand Management •Connection Control •Network Planning Data

Decision Making and Strategy

Financial Information, Customer Status, Project Planning, Network Status, Water Quality, Staffing Information, Cost/Recovery Information, Non-Revenue Water

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Billing

CRM _ManagementMaintenance

Financial System

Supply Chain Project Accounting

Human Resource Management

Document Management Financial Analysis Business Intelligence Tariff

SCADA Network Modelling

Meter Flow

Demand Management Fleet Management

GIS •Customer Service •Maintenanc e Staff •Operations & Maintenanc e Staff •Engineers and Planners •Back-office: Accounting, HR, Admin, procurement s and other logistics support •Senior Manager •Planners •Strategy, Tariff Development •Reporting to Board/Governmen t •Supplier Management •E-Business •Employee E-Service •Internal Management •Supply/Demand Planning & Management •Customer Location Management •Maintenance and Operations Support •Customers E-Service Channel Internal User Profile

External User Profile or Usage Type

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