Chandrasekeran, Prabhu

Prabhu is the North America Practice Leader for Stantec's Digital Transformation and Smart Utility services to water utilities. Prabhu enjoys problem solving and is passionate about developing transformational solutions to the challenges facing water industry. He helps water utility with developing their digital and smart utility strategies and implementation roadmap.

Titles from this speaker

Becoming Utility of the Future - Journeys and Case Studies

Abstract

Introduction Several utilities envision becoming the Utility of the Future (UOTF) and has embarked on an ambitious path to realize this vision. They typically set goals to improve business operations and performance in the following six areas (Figure 1). Becoming the UOTF requires transformation in business practices and operations by leveraging innovation and technology to optimize the use and management of human, financial, and physical resources, ultimately improving organizational performance. Ambitious transformational initiatives such as UOTF begins with a clear understanding of utility objectives and their prioritization, followed by strategies and tactics to realize those objectives and outcomes. Becoming and being UOTF The utility of the future delivers safe, reliable, and affordable services. It can adapt it business operations to continually improve operations and capital efficiencies with innovative practices, technologies, and data-driven solutions. UOTF requires a paradigm shift in the strategies, approaches, and initiatives to achieve a new set of goals and objectives far beyond what has been achieved or aimed until today. These new goals must represent the needs of the organization, and the subsequent development of strategies and implementation of tactics must be based on challenges faced by the organization in advancing the UOTF vision. UOTF is an abstract concept, and every utility defines it based on their business drivers and objectives. UOTF can be defined using the characteristics and capabilities of several functions and aspects of the utility grouped under three major domains — Organizational, Process, and Technology. Figure 2 shows these major domains and the sub-domains using which the characteristics and capabilities of the future state of the utility could be defined. Utilities need several capabilities ranging from strategic management, financial management, operations and maintenance, customer service, asset planning and delivery, and human resources - among others. Becoming and being a UOTF is about increasing the maturity of the capabilities that enable and support the achievement of aspirational goals and objectives of the organization. As with any transformational program, the first step involves an assessment of the current capabilities of an organization, business unit(s) or even team(s) to establish a baseline as well as to identify the gaps and challenges with advancing the current capabilities that are necessary to meet targeted goals and metrics. Stantec's clients had provided the following (Figure 3) as list of drivers behind some of their initiatives for becoming UOTF. Assessing UOTF Capability Maturity Stantec has conducted maturity assessment to set baselines for UOTF transformation programs. Figure 4 shows a sample of one of the utilities' distribution and variation of overall maturity score under each assessment category. The review of the results suggested that there was a wide range in what the participants perceived as their current capabilities. This was quite normal and expected for water utilities of mid and large size, which is composed of several business units. Global perspective and case studies Several utilities across the globe understand that they must have a paradigm shift in how they conduct and operate their business to address existing challenges, be prepared to face future challenges, and to gain performance improvements in managing customer experience, infrastructure operations and maintenance, infrastructure planning and delivery, and investment planning. Utilities are facing these business challenges during a time of increased regulatory pressure, and significant capital improvement programs. These utilities are leveraging innovation to transform themselves and gain new capabilities to address the challenges facing their organization and meet targeted objectives and metrics. Innovation is not limited to technologies but includes how they conduct their business including performance driven procurement and delivery models. They also applied innovation in their physical (assets, machinery, equipment, and unit operations) and digital technologies to increase their business capabilities. While digital innovation enhances the collection and use of better data to make better decisions to achieve better outcomes in a timely manner, the implementation of digital technology solutions within those utilities had been based on specific list of prioritized objectives. These utilities also recognized that the transformation of their utility functions enabled by innovation and technology solutions had to be supported by organizational change management (OCM) practices that help utility workforce navigate necessary transformational initiatives. Figure 5 shows the key strategies used by these global utilities pursuing their UOTF vision. Market opportunities to enable and advance innovation The water industry is going through a transformation to move away from implementing disparate projects and solutions for infrastructure operations and improvement challenges, to a systems-approach where the solutions are developed using an integrated framework that considers the whole life cycle cost of assets. This integrated systems-based approach to managing infrastructure requires innovative technologies and business models that leverage data and empower people to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of utility functions. Innovation in digital technologies paired with continuous improvements in the engineering technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities to better manage water infrastructure, and other supporting utility functions. The good news is that the current market offers hundreds of vendors supplying both physical and digital solutions specific to the water industry. This healthy competition fuels further product and service innovation. On the other hand, new partnerships are established among technology providers to co-innovate and create cost-effective products and solutions to water utilities. In addition to leveraging the opportunities of innovative technologies, pioneering utilities are implementing innovative business models particularly in how they procure products and services to deliver their capital improvement programs. Innovation in procurement in those utilities is strongly based on meeting performance goals and managing long-term risks. These new delivery models have the potential to offset upfront capital investments and yet enable utilities to deliver desired business outcomes. Figure 6 shows the opportunities provided by the market. Lessons from utilities pursuing UOTF Review of utilities in their UOTF journey indicated that regulatory and/or financial pressures were the major factor and strong drivers that created the sense of urgency to implement and advance their transformational programs. There was also a strong and relentless attention and support from the executive leadership to drive innovation within the utility. In addition to leadership engagement, there were several champions who were responsible for spearheading several initiatives, which were predominantly related to asset management, operations and situational awareness, and customer experience. The strategies of these organizational were typically programmatic and supported by a governance structure. Leading utilities understood that transformational programs while greatly requires the support of technologies, they did not implement their initiatives as technology projects. The focus was on delivering business outcomes that were tied to specific performance metrics. Technology solutions involving data and analytics were identified based on specific use cases that were directly supporting business process improvements and enabling workforce to be more informed. These utilities also had a strong focus on making best financial decisions by employing appropriate business case evaluations of their initiatives, projects, and solutions, and their potential for a faster ROI. These utilities also recognized the importance of change management initiatives that were critical to implementing organization-wide transformational programs. Strategies also included long term alliances and partnership models to deliver multiple programs in a cost-effective way as well as to improve knowledge transfer from solutions providers to the organizational workforce. Figure 7 shows the drivers, goals, strategies, and outcomes of UOTF. Summary The presentation will provide an overview of UOTF concepts and case studies from global utilities pursuing their UOTF vision. Utilities small, mid, and large could all learn from the lessons learned from these utility case studies.

This paper was presented at the WEF/AWWA Utility Management Conference, February 21-24, 2022.

SpeakerChandrasekeran, Prabhu

Presentation time

15:30:00

16:00:00

Session time

15:30:00

17:00:00

SessionUtility Leadership and Strategy Implementation II

Session number26

Session locationHyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Orlando, Florida

TopicDecision Making, Knowledge Transfer, Organizational Change Management, Resiliency, Risk Management

Author(s)

P. Chandrasekeran

Author(s)P. Chandrasekeran1

Author affiliation(s)Stantec Consulting Service Inc 1

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Feb 2022

DOI10.2175/193864718825158279

Volume / Issue

Content sourceUtility Management Conference

Word count11

Utility Performance Improvement through Business Process Transformation

Abstract

Organizational performance and business processes The City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management (DWM or Department) developed its strategic plan (SP2022) and identified eight strategic priority areas. One of the strategic priorities, Smart Utility focuses on leveraging innovation, information technology, operational technology, and process technology to optimize the use and management of financial and human capital investments to improve financial, operational, and customer service performance and resiliency. The Department delivers its mission by performing its core functions through its six Offices and its support functions through its seven administrative divisions. Smart utility program's goal is to implement initiatives that improve these Departmental functions and empower its workforce with better data when they need it so that they can make better decisions in a timely manner and meet targeted performance metrics. The core and support functions of the offices and administrative divisions are implemented through manageable collection of tasks or activities with a specific objective. These collection and sequence of events, tasks, and decisions performed by employees and stakeholders to achieve a measurable and/or quantifiable objective is called a business process. Each task within a business process employs and interacts with organizational assets including technologies, equipment, and systems. Tasks also require data by collecting, generating, and integrating from different data sources. Tasks are either performed within or outside an IT/OT system automatically or manually. In addition, there are policies and protocols that governance each task. Figure 1 shows the components of a business process and how they are influenced and impacted by People, Policies, Data, and Technologies. The fundamental driver behind Smart Utility initiatives is the need for improving organizational performance and efficiency. Performance of those functions is delivered through the effective and efficient implementation of business processes under those functions. Hence, improving the organizational performance requires improving the performance of business processes. Improving business processes might require improving one or more of the business process components — People, Policy, Data, and Technology. Recognizing the importance of process-driven transformation, the Department instituted the Business Process Improvement initiative with the goal of systematically managing the assessment and improvement of business processes. Following are the specific objectives of Business Process Improvement initiative: - Review existing approach to business process knowledge management and develop an improved approach to be standardized for the Department - Develop business process hierarchy and best practices to manage information and knowledge about business processes. - Assess business processes within a specific process area and identify transformational changes — people, process, policy, and technology - Develop organizational change management strategies to enable and support the implementation of transformational changes Assessing and Improving Business Processes Achieving process improvements beings with identification of current gaps and deficiencies that limit the process from effectively and efficiently performing its intended purpose and meet its desired objective. Figure below shows the different areas where business processes might suffer from gaps and deficiencies. Assessment of business processes is possible only when information about individual task exists adequately. Documentation of information about business processes typically includes written as well as diagrammatic representation of the process tasks aka models that help visualize process details. These models are useful to share knowledge of the business processes with people within and outside teams primarily involved in the implementation of the business process. Once business processes are documented, then it makes it easier for assessment and identification of opportunities for improvements, which might include addressing redundant tasks, resource inefficiencies, and technology gaps. This entire process of documenting, analyzing, and making improvements to business processes is called the Business Process Management (BPM). Figure 2 shows the possible improvements under People, Policy, Data and Technology. DWM's Business Process Framework The Department's approach to managing these business processes is no longer siloed but an integrated one to better manage the relationships, data sharing, IT/OT system requirements, and other interdependencies of business process across all Offices and Administrative Divisions. The first step in this department-wide business process management is creating a framework that allows for the hierarchical organization of core and support functions and hundreds of business processes under those functions. This section will describe the business process framework developed and used to manage business process modeling, assessment, and improvements. The Department reviewed process frameworks such as those developed by American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC)and Water Research Foundation (WRF) to guide the development of the Department's process hierarchy. These frameworks offer a defined structure of process groups, sub-groups, and a list of business processes. However, these frameworks could not be used as-is because the nomenclature and the organization of the business processes did not represent how the Departmental functions and people are organized. The Department used these frameworks to guide the development of the structure, organization, and hierarchy of the DWM's Business Process Framework (Figure 3). Implementation of BPM to improve Customer Metering Processes The DWM then applied the framework and the principles of BPM to document, assess, and identify gaps and areas of improvement in the Metering Life Cycle Processes. Customer metering is one of the complex process groups as it touches almost all the DWM Offices and outside DWM into the City's Department of Finance. There were hundreds of people engaged in this complex group of processes. This effort was performed in tandem with the review of improvements to the Customer Information System. Summary DWM's Business Process Framework is one of the first ever initiatives within North America that approaches process improvement and transformation as a focused strategy to improve organizational performance and efficiency. Utilization of a standard BPM software to manage business processes helped improve the management of knowledge and understanding of business processes.

This paper was presented at the WEF/AWWA Utility Management Conference, February 21-24, 2022.

SpeakerChandrasekeran, Prabhu

Presentation time

14:30:00

15:00:00

Session time

13:30:00

15:00:00

SessionBusiness Transformation for Nimble CIP Planning

Session number22

Session locationHyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Orlando, Florida

TopicAsset Management, Business Process Optimization, Capital Planning, Organizational Change Management, Project / Program Controls