Following the amalgamation of three separate councils into one, the newly formed water authority had to consolidate and validate from three vastly different systems, while at the same time streamlining work processes to ensure compliance and accountability.
Challenge
Sunshine Coast Water was created through the amalgamation of the former Council Water Authorities at Noosa, Maroochy and Caloundra. The new organisation covers a region of over 3,000 square kilometres, located approximately one hour north of Brisbane Queensland.
In consolidating three organisations into one, Sunshine Coast Water also had to comply with Queensland Water Commission’s water reform process for improved regional coordination, accountability and consistent levels of service to customers.
Solution
IBM Maximo has already been in use by the Maroochy Council, and was a clear fit to Sunshine Coast Water’s requirements. After reviewing successful IBM Maximo engagements in the local government sector, Sunshine Coast Water selected Clarita Solutions to develop an asset management solution that would:
- Consolidate asset data from three legacy systems
- Issue all maintenance and construction activities via Work Orders
- Rollout mobile computing to all field staff for the delivery of Work Orders
- Serve as the single entry point for customer service call centres
Benefits
Sunshine Coast Water have realised a number of benefits through the Maximo 7 project, the most obvious being the consolidated platform for Asset and Works Management readily accessible by all key staff regardless of which Council they originally belonged to.
Amalgamated network operations, required to be online 24 hours a day, now have one platform to interact with, with real time information on the locations of field crews enabling rapid redeployment to critical service requests. Allowing field staff to enter data has also increased the efficiency of data entry to the system, allowing them to get more done, and be aware of scheduled tasks.
Finally, integration with council’s Financial, Payroll and Geographic Information Systems ensures staff have a clear picture of what the assets are, where they are and how much they are costing rate payers.