Q: What type of challenges was Global Water facing prior to implementing Cityworks?
A: The entire industry agrees that water prices are going up. Whether due to water scarcity, power costs, treatment costs, infrastructure replacement, or regulatory mandates, water prices will continue to rise. As a regulated utility company operating in the desert, we are committed to our rate payers to ensure water is always available and is as affordable as possible. With the certainty of rising water prices, our only answer to maintain lower rates for our customers was to become more efficient. Cityworks was a perfect solution for our work order system foundation.
Q: Why Cityworks?
A: The other systems we looked into couldn’t match Cityworks unique GIS-centric feature set. Global Water deploys its integrated approach, Total Water Management or ‘‘TWM’’ (which means managing the entire water cycle: water, wastewater, and recycled water), to conserve water and maximize its economic and social value. Global Water uses TWM to promote sustainable communities in areas where it expects growth to outpace the existing potable water supply. We absolutely need to know where our assets are. We consider the asset management database which includes Cityworks, GIS, and other software as the third essential database for our utilities (customers being the first and consumption being the second).
Q: How is Cityworks utilized at Global Water?
A: Cityworks is the primary work order system within our enterprise utility master data management system. Every work order in Global, regardless if it is generated by the Customer Information System or the SCADA systems, creates a work order in Cityworks.
Additionally, Global Water is one of the few water organizations that recognize the benefit of live-field work orders, and we have the IT capacity to execute on our vision. We have been running Cityworks over aircards live in the field since 2009. As a result, operators use it for everything from timecard reporting and rounds, to the most complicated treatment system repairs. There is not a single piece of work that happens at Global without a Cityworks work order being generated first.
Q: How has Cityworks benefited the organization?
A: Global Water today runs with 49% less power, 65% less labor, and spends 90% less on operational costs than the industry average. We have transitioned from reactionary maintenance to proactive maintenance all the way through condition-based maintenance, and the results have been tremendous.
Q: Explain Global Water’s FATHOM program and how it relates to Cityworks.
A: FATHOMTM Utility-to-Utility (U2UTM) Solutions provides utility management systems for Customer Service & Billing, Advanced Metering Infrastructure, and Asset Management in a hosted software as a service configuration. Cityworks provides the GIS-based work order and asset management foundation within the FATHOMTM utility master data management solution.
We spent tens of thousands of hours perfecting our asset management solutions and utility best practice work order configurations. Through FATHOM, this state-of-the-art technology, including Cityworks and our utility-proven work orders, is now available to utilities across the U.S., risk-free and with little to no upfront capital. Cityworks is our work order management system of choice, and it appears in all of our product offerings.
Q: What future plans does Global Water have for Cityworks?
A: We continue to implement the newest features available in Cityworks and look forward to updating our configuration to Server AMS in the near future.
About Global Water
Global Water Resources, Inc. (“Global Water”) is a leading, U.S.-based water resource management and technology company that owns and operates 14 regulated water, wastewater, and recycled water utilities. Global Water also provides technology-enabled services through its unique technology platform, FATHOMTM Utility-to-Utility (U2U™) Solutions. Initially developed by Global Water to support and optimize its own utilities, FATHOM is an integrated suite of advanced products designed to increase revenue, decrease costs, and bring heightened efficiencies to municipally-owned utilities. Learn more at www.gwfathom.com.
With Jason Bethke, Vice President, FATHOM™ – Global Water
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