By: Michael Cole
Calgary, Alberta is at the forefront of the worldwide change affecting the electric industry.
Like other electric utilities throughout North America, The City of Calgary responded quickly by forming a wholly-owned subsidiary to better meet the challenges of competition in the electric industry, while also changing its name to establish a greater marketing presence, (including an aggressive campaign to market green power). The electric department of Calgary's utility services, previously referred to as The City of Calgary's Electric System, was renamed Enmax Corporation last year.
As it recognized this new focus on the customer in the utility industry, The City of Calgary, driven by the specter of Year 2000 issues as well as deregulation, decided to replace its 18-year old legacy mainframe, built in 1981, with a new state-of-the-art customer information system for all its utility customers. Through an outsourcing agreement with Enlogix CIS, a subsidiary of Westcoast Energy Inc., Calgary selected the SCT Banner customer management and billing system.
"With the significant restructuring of the electricity industry in Alberta, the new CIS system provides the flexibility and customer focus needed to offer outstanding service in a competitive marketplace," said Jeff Nish, General Manager of Energy Services for Enmax.
Like other municipal utilities impacted by impending deregulation, its destiny was forever changed, on January 1, 1996, when the Electric Utilities Act (EUA) was introduced in Alberta. The legislation proposed competition into the electric business at the generation level. The City of Calgary which supports the back office for five utilities-electric, water, sewage, solid waste and sanitation to 325,000 customers, responded quickly, selected the Banner system from Enlogix, headquartered in Toronto, in February of 1998, after a year-long selection process. A team set up in January of 1997 by Calgary CIS project manager Kent Hillard spent three months establishing a list of requirements needed from a new CIS. Beginning in April of that year, the project team issued 76 requests-for-proposals from software vendors. The City narrowed the search process down to three vendors that made presentations based on detailed test scripts developed by The City of Calgary.
"We wanted them to demonstrate what the system would or wouldn't do in real-life situations," says Hillard. "I was the only one who knew what the price response was, because I wanted the team to select the best system for us without considering cost. In the end, we selected Enlogix's Banner service as best meeting the current and future functional requirements of the utilities and it provided the least risk as far as it was the only software that had been developed that was actually in use by other utilities. Other software didn't have that track record."
SCT's track record, particularly in Canada, was significant. West-coast Energy purchased Banner for its operating divisions and established a marketing agreement, through En-logix, to resell the software in Canada.
In Ontario, Toronto Hydro has chosen and is implementing the SCT customer information system. Banner CIS was also implemented within six months at two energy services companies in California (Edison Source and PG&E Energy Services) as the state became the first in the U.S. to open its electricity market to competition, in April of 1998.
"SCT seemed to have a good plan to keep (the system) technically current through regular upgrades or changes," Hillard said. "And since Banner is primarily an American system, they seem to be handling and staying current with the requirements and changes down there. Since Canada is generally a step behind what's happening regarding deregulation, we will benefit right away."
According to Hillard, Calgary's current mainframe was not Year 2000 ready. And although the mainframe had been modified extensively, it became increasingly difficult to make changes and be responsive to the changing needs of the utility environment. Through its relationship with Enlogix, Calgary will be solving its Y2K issues. "In addition," Hillard said, "we will be able to have flexible table-driven rules and put in new rates without extensive programming."
The City of Calgary is converting from an S-390 mainframe system to a client-server environment, relying on Banner's Oracle database technology. The main server, an IBM-RS 6000, will be stationed at an Enlogix data center, located in Calgary. The City of Calgary and Enmax representatives will use Banner on desktop workstations using Pentium II processors, with 350MHZ.
"Basically, we made the decision to outsource because we felt Enlogix would be able to provide technological resources through its experienced staff," Hillard said. "Our corporation is in the midst of several large system developments right now. To try to (bring the data center in house and) recruit and train in a competitive market right now would be difficult." Fiber optic cable will connect the Enlogix data center to Calgary's site. "We should have good performance," Hillard added. "
A major factor in The City of Calgary's decision to rely on the Enlogix outsource package were the SCT and Enlogix proven implementation methodologies. By this September, representatives of Calgary and Enmax hope to be operational on Banner in order to minimize Year 2000-related issues. "We do not want to implement too late in 1999," says Hillard, "because Banner interfaces with a significant number of other systems. We don't want to cause problems with other systems in the city."
SCT's accelerated implementation practices are well established - 40 Banner systems have been successfully implemented at utilities worldwide, more than any client/server-based customer management billing system. Average implementation time for these 40 systems has averaged under a year - proof, according to representatives from SCT and Enlogix, that organizations that are willing and flexible to change familiar business practices can go live quickly.
"It is still a challenge," admits Dave Gallagher of Enlogix CIS. "It is a more manageable process for utilities that are starting out. As a utility that has been in business for many years though, they have employees who have always done things a certain way. Some of the folks who were experts on the old system, must become experts on the new one. It is tough on people to go through that. It is a testament to The City of Calgary that their people have the skills to successfully pull this off."
Since its mainframe was built in 1981, Hillard estimates that the City of Calgary has been able to effectively reduce its staff from 300 employees in the Utility Customer Accounts Division to 164. The Calgary CIS project manager says adjusting from a mainframe environment with dumb terminals to a PC Windows-based environment will be difficult for some of the employees with longer service at The City of Calgary and at Enmax.
"We've customized a lot of our unique processes and procedures over 18 years," he said. "When you come to a new system, things are different. It is very difficult to shake loose of all the old processes and procedures. But it's important for us to try to convert our processes into industry-best practices. Still, it is difficult to change the way you do business. It's a challenge to turn around and try to duplicate on Banner some of the practices that we have today."
Enlogix CIS has transferred knowledge it has gained from its experiences at Westcoast Energy and other Banner implementations in Canada to the City of Calgary project. Enlogix has "Canadian-ized" Banner by making small modifications that will fulfill unique measurement, regulatory and tax requirements, like the GST.
Through the implementation process Calgary will change 100 major policies. "But we're going forward with only nine modifications to the system," Hillard says. "We're endeavoring to change our processes to match industry standards."
To accomplish this, representatives from Calgary established seven different teams to address different issues related to the implementation, including:
The business team is divided into three sub-groups that provide documentation of business designs, training on the system and the testing and development of test scripts.
Hillard said the plan has been so successful in Phase 1 (Project Scope and Work Plan) that Calgary has published a binder, documenting the implementation. "Business analysts from SCT are so impressed that they are planning to deploy portions of our implementation methodologies in the future at other locations," Hillard said. "Our individuals, by learning Banner so well early in the process, have been able to eliminate an awful lot of changes to the system."
Case in point: the leader of the rates team, Mike Nadon from The City of Calgary has tweaked Banner to allow for exact-day billing for all five utility services, which will make it easier for customers to understand and read their bills.
Upon completion, the implementation will enable The City of Calgary and Enmax to separate their customer account histories according to their electric and water usage, something that could not be achieved easily on the mainframe system. Such a feature will allow Calgary to create separate utility budget billing, thereby improving accuracy for each utility.
When the project is completed, approximately 500 regular and occasional end-users within The City of Calgary will have access to Banner, including utilities customer accounts personnel, dispatchers and key account representatives. In addition, Banner will maintain The City of Calgary's capability as one of the only utility systems in North America to offer payment information for water and electricity on one single bill.
"When you move from a mainframe environment to PC Windows-based technology, there is definitely a learning curve," Hillard says. "Each day we realize that implementation is a bigger job than anticipated at the beginning. It takes a while for your resources to get up to speed, but once they do, it pays off."
The combination of resources and expertise from Enlogix CIS, The City of Calgary and SCT is making it pay off, as Enmax moves into the next century.
Hillard admitted that there is a danger of focusing on the negative during early phases of implementation. "Change is difficult for a lot of people," he admitted. "But there have been a lot of pluses and we've been very successful as we've gone along. I credit that to the people who have come together as a team and developed expertise in many different areas."
Michael Cole is Media Relations Specialist with SCT Utility Systems, Inc.
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