BUSINESS
WATERLOG D Cummins Abstract South East Water Limited, one of the retail water companies supplying water and sewe rage services to Melbourne, Victoria, has developed a
customer information and work management software system called 'WaterLog'. It is used by the Field Services Division to record unplanned and planned supply restoration work, often generated from customer calls. T he system also supports the contractors carrying out the work, processing
all works on screen from job commencement to final invoice. Many of the complex paper systems have been eliminated, and the system has been well accepted by all levels of personnel.
Introduction South East Water Limited (SEWL), was formed in January 1995 as the provider of water and sewerage services to the South East region of Melbourne. It is one of three retail water companies whic h provide services under a "Licence to Operate" arrangement as monitored by t he Victorian Government. As the key part of reform of the Metropolitan water ind ustry, SEWL operates in a "competition by comparison" environment with other Metropolitan water companies. The area covered by SEWL is shown on Figure 1, and the company services some 1.4 million customers, in 568,000 properties. It operates 7,500 km of water pipelines and 6000 km of sewer mains. Within SEWL, Field Services is the division responsible for operating the water and sewerage systems. All field based repair work is initiated from Field Services (often from c ustomers' telephone calls) and then carried out by various contractors (Thiess Contractors/ Siemens are the principal contracto rs).
WaterLog-Why?
Figure 1 The front screen for Waterlog
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Figure 2 The work input screen with information including street history
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Soon after indep endent operation commenced, Field Services Division evaluated a number of "off- the-shelf' management products but failed to find a system whic h me t the exacting requirements of SEWL. In co nsequence th e "WaterLog" computer system was developed "in-house". In addition to a comprehensive customer call and work management system, WaterLog provides many other benefits not fou nd in alternative packages. Waterlog was introduced during 1995, and has already changed significantly from the initial product. Ongoing changes and development are expected as the business changes rapidly and new requirements are identified. The system has been developed fro m the standard Microsoft range of products and it has been purposely designed to provide an easy and friendly interface for all users . This is best demonstrated by the reactions of a large section of Field Services personnel who are not regarded as sp ecifically computer-skilled, yet all remark without exception how easy it is to use WaterLog to enter new works and query existing work information. WATER MARCH/ APRIL 1997
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