The city of Richland, Washington, has chosen its StakeOut software as an enterprise solution for its utility work order management, cost estimating, and field design. Situated along the Columbia River, Richland serves 21,000 utility customers with a service territory of 50 square miles.
Utilities use StakeOut software to manage and streamline their entire work order process -- from field design to work order tracking to close-out. StakeOut's mobile editing functions allow users to take the essential geospatial information into the field for design, maintenance, and construction. This functionality, combined with StakeOut's work order management capabilities, provides significant productivity enhancement to electric, gas, and telecommunication utilities.
quot;Like a lot of other utilities, we are looking for more efficient ways of doing things," said Mike Murray, power analyst for the city of Richland. "We have implemented a new financial system that lacks a cost estimating and work order tool that fits our needs as a construction utility. StakeOut will provide those tools."
quot;We needed to revamp our work order system. We required a tool to allow us to better track our estimates versus our actual charges versus our budgets. We now will have the visibility enterprise-wide to review our project estimates and actual costs and develop reports to validate them," Murray said.
According to Murray, StakeOut also provides a platform to use with other business systems including accounting, customer information systems, utility billing and inventory management. "We are going to get this in the hands of our field crews and eliminate the dual data entry throughout the organization. If we can get away from hard copy maps, we can begin to approach our data on a near real-time basis. We can manage with same-day data instead of two-to three-week-old data."
According to Murray, Richland will see a cost savings of 30-40% in eliminating the dual data entry done by field and office personnel. "We also expect savings from reducing the outsourcing of engineering design work. Through the efficiencies we'll gain with StakeOut, we'll bring more of that work in-house."
The StakeOut solution will be implemented over the next nine months.
