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CONTACT INFORMATION
City of Springfield
Al Monson
Director of Finance
217-789-2116 x541 |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
City Water Light and Power Goes Live
with CIS Infinity
Largest municipal utility in Illinois strengthens customer
service, cost-management with new CIS solution.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS and TORONTO, CANADA, May 21, 2003 -
City Water Light and Power (CWLP) is pleased to announce that CIS
Infinity™ is now live, ending the implementation on-budget at the
multi-service utility. Replacing an aging legacy system that had
reached its limitations, CIS Infinity provides the flexible solution
required to serve 70,000+ Electric and Water customers, and provide
billing services for Sewer and Sanitation customers.
“We’re the largest municipality in the State, and the 37th largest
municipal utility in the United States,” says Al Monson, Director
of Finance at CWLP. “We needed a solution that could handle the
strict requirements of our rate structure and our demanding transaction
volume.” Each month, CWLP processes approximately 1,000,000 cash,
billing and adjustment transactions, and 78,000 bills.
Now that CIS Infinity is live, “residential and commercial customers
are experiencing the service benefits and efficiencies that Advanced
worked with us to implement. Our previous system had come to the
end of its product life. We needed a system that could respond to
the complex demands of our customers.”
“For example, our new clear and flexible billing format can display
per-kilowatt and per-unit costs, and can distinguish between the
sewer/sanitary charges CWLP collects for the City’s Public Works
Department and the Springfield Metro Sanitary District.”
“Our employees conducted extensive testing during the implementation,”
continues Al Monson. “CIS Infinity proved to be a fast, scalable
solution for the 100-plus users that became proficient in its use.”
Mark Edwards, Software Specialist at CWLP, reports that performance
was a key business requirement. “With an Oracle database on a UNIX
platform, CIS Infinity has demonstrated tremendous performance in
both test and production environments.”
“We’re in a position to make real customer service gains while
meeting our cost-management objectives,” explains Todd Renfrow,
CWLP’s General Manager. Over time, savings are expected to come
from taking full advantage of a fully configurable CIS solution
that grows to meet changing business requirements. “We plan
to interface CIS Infinity fully with our other automated customer
service tools: Interactive Voice Response, GIS and Outage Management.
These features will augment CWLP’s long standing commitment to superior
customer service.”
“We’re especially interested in the service and savings potential
from CustomerVu,” the new Web-based solution from Advanced that
will give utility customers internet access to their accounts.
CWLP has implemented their rate structure with CIS Infinity’s Rate
Engine™ technology, facilitating accurate billing for a wide variety
of residential and commercial accounts. In Mr. Monson’s view, “Precise
billing is not only a huge customer service benefit; it’s also a
huge factor in forecasting costs and generating revenue.”
CWLP is a multi-service company that provides Electric and Water
services, as well as street lights, security lighting, fire protection,
maintains company meters, and bills for Sewer and Sanitary services.
Annually, CWLP processes over 900,000 bills: approximately 876,000
regular bills, and 24,000 adjustment bills based on customer requests.
They have 112,000 accounts, of which 78,000 are active.
About Advanced
Advanced Utility Systems Corporation is a privately owned and
operated software and services Company headquartered in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada. The company has grown from its 1997 start-up to
serve over 50 North American water, electric and natural gas utility
clients with its billing and customer information software CIS Infinity.
The team at Advanced Utility Systems delivers whatever it takes
to develop the ideal solution for the utility market. For additional
information visit www.advancedutility.com
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