Greg Staveley Manager Business Customer Delivery August 2013 Managing Backflow program growth – Issues and solutions The Sydney Water approach.

Greg Staveley

Manager Business Customer Delivery

August 2013

Managing Backflow program growth – Issues and solutions

The Sydney Water approach

Operational

• Covers an area of 13,000 km2

• 21,000 km of water mains

• 4 million customers

Properties

• 1.6 m residential

• 50,000 commercial

• 26,000 Industrial

• 1.2 million water meters

2005 that was then….

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This was then…2005Project to program

8000 properties / customers

11500 containment devices

Target growth of 2000 new customers annually

200 installation audit inspections

Backflow team – Manager, 4 Administrators, 1 Team leader, 1 Technical Advisor

Issues Unsupported standalone database

No integration into SWC source systems

Large amounts of manual administration

Process bottlenecks

Growing backlog of work –new customers, inspections and annual test follow up

Could not meet our growth targets

Document storage and retrieval problems

High exception rate with test reports

Reporting and staff engagement

Business case - risks High and medium risk properties not managed effectively –

risk of drinking water contamination resulting in sickness or death.

Failure to comply with our Operating License (public health)

Failure to comply with State Records Act

Inability to track and monitor changes in property and meter details, track compliance

Inability to manage backflow customer growth

Benefits Meet Protect public health requirement in our Operating

License

Enable growth of program

Process improvement, automation

Improve customer experience

Accurate reporting

Lower operating costs through reduction in labour

Across the line Business case approved

$1.8M expenditure approved on basis of risk to public health, operating license compliance

15 months of IT development

Integration across source systems

Outsourced print, scan, data capture under Tender arrangement

Web portal for on line lodgement

Solution looks like..

Developer

Backflow Database

Source databases

Reports Exceptions

Scan

Letter issue

Inspections

Property

CMS

Letter issue23 template letters

Initial installation

Annual test

Non compliance – initial install, annual test, device installation

Restriction / disconnection process

Extension requests

Automatic follow up / date driven issue.

Letter process Request to install device

Initial install

Letter sent

Final reminder

Disconnection notice

Initial reminder

30 days60 days 21 days 7 days

Water supply to be restricted or Disconnected

On line lodgement Developed to benefit plumbers

Less work for plumbers. System partially completes on line form for plumber. Input Property number

Registration – only Backflow accredited plumbers

Web listing of registered plumbers for customers

Customised print version include logo / name of plumber

Mandatory fields - low exception rate..

High take up rate

Where are we now? 24500 properties / customers

27 011 devices  

1300 registered accredited plumbers for web  

100% of all test reports are lodged on web  

26000 letters issued annually

Program compliance is 90% (install and annual test)

1 Manager, 2 System and Work Coordinators, 1 Technical Specialist

Relationship management with high value / risk customers

Backflow Risk Index

Backflow Risk Index Tool to prioritise process risk in the High hazard category.

Criteria and weightings

Top five - Primary producers, drum manufacturers / re-conditioners, irrigation (chemical injection), poultry farms and pest controllers.

Description

Volume, Size of Water Connection

5-10

Degree of Industry Regulation

5-15

No. of backflow X connection risks

5-40

Owner Operator -(financial, higher risk)

5-15

Complexity of pipework

5-15

Negligent use of equipment

15-30

Probability of piping change (incl temporary)

5-10

On site work practices

5-20

Where to from here?

Mobile phone application – web lodgement

Expressions of interest – Backflow database as a product. Web lodgement, letter templates and issue, reporting, inspections database.

Potentially under License Arrangement

Cost and timeline still to be confirmed

For more information

[email protected]

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Questions?

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IT model