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Cityworks User Spotlight: City of Houston Public Works and Engineering
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Holland, Michigan is known for it's Dutch heritage, historic windmill, and annual tulip festival. The city was founded in 1847 along western Michigan's Lake Macatawa, near Lake Michigan. From this vantage point, the Holland Board of Public Works (HBPW), a community-owned enterprise, provides water distribution, wastewater collection and electric distribution to the City of Holland and the greater Holland area. The HBPW distributes water to 12,380 customers and collects wastewater from 10,522 customers. Azteca's Cityworks© software system has become an integral part of maintaining water and wastewater utilities. In an area known for it's flowers, GIS has come to play a prominent role in servicing the community.
The Holland Board of Public Works began using Azteca software at the beginning of the year. The most impressive part about this story is that the organization self-implemented Cityworks©. According to Ellen Taub, HBPW GIS Supervisor, "self-implementing a new software product presents a unique opportunity to gain a thorough understanding of how it works and what it can provide." By the end of June, the software was fully integrated into the organization's existing GIS. According to Robert Humphrey, HBPW GIS Specialist, "assessing and converting existing data was the most time consuming part of the implementation." The experience did not come without obstacles. "The most difficult part was training staff to understand and operate Cityworks." Though they did utilize phone support, the organization did not require on-location assistance from Azteca.
Presently, the HBPW uses the water and wastewater Cityworks© modules. According to Humphrey, "work order management has become a great asset for monitoring and scheduling system maintenance, as well as providing work orders. Cityworks© efficiently handles the scheduling of periodic maintenance and cleaning, and the tracking of service calls for main breaks, backups, and other reactive problems." Recently the water and sewer service crews also began using Cityworks© to manage their cyclical work orders. Expanded use of Cityworks© is enthusiastically anticipated.
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