Keith Abercrombie, the Chief Operating Office of Santa Clarita Valley Water (SCVW) and his newly formed team were faced with a number of challenges when they amalgamated the three water divisions of, Newhall Water, Santa Clarita Water, and Valencia Water, to form a single agency SCVW serving 273,000 people in 2018. Not least among these challenges was getting a handle on what permits existed across the three divisions. This coupled with an aging work force, of which 80% is over 50, and a few key team members retiring over the coming years, drove Keith and the team to look for a new way to handle their permits.
THE CHALLENGE
Keith and the new management team quickly realised that they were not fully aware of every permit which was being managed across the three divisions. In the old world everyone knew who was responsible for managing a specific permit but a change in the overall structure meant a change in responsibilities for many employees. Each permit, of course, had some sort of requirement to fulfill for a key regulatory body. Not reporting or complying would mean that the utility would be subject to a fine or penalty- which in many cases could be quite material. Not having the full view was putting the team at risk.
THE SOLUTION
The Klir team came on site and spent a “day in the life” with SCVW to understand how permitting was being currently managed. The team then met with all key operators to present the findings, provide an overview of how the Klir software would benefit them and next steps to get them up and running with Klir as soon as possible.
The Klir team then worked with SCVW to:
- Gather and input all permit data and requirements into Klir’s management system
- Build onto existing systems and processes, ensuring that employees could continue to work the exact same way as before
- Set up Klir’s system of triggers and alerts to automatically keep track of and manage all the tasks, activities and notifications for every single permit
- Train all operators and senior management on the Klir software
- Provide a central and single source of truth & visibility into the status all 150+ permits
UNEXPECTED BENEFITS:
SCVW also experienced a number of extended benefits by implementing Klir’s permit management software including:
- Deeper understanding of each permit as they entered them into the system
- Nobody needed to change how they worked because Klir sits on top of existing processes and systems
- No “configuration” of the software because it is designed exclusively for water utilities
- Klir software was very easy to use
