Lima, OH

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The City of Lima created a roadmap to deliver improved water and public services to residents while supporting the city’s growth. To achieve this goal, the Water Utility, together with Mayor Berger and Utility Metering Solutions (UMS), identified new technologies to help them achieve their objectives and address specific challenges, including:

• Replacing its aging water meter infrastructure
• Improving cross-departmental communication and access to information
• Using smart technology to improve the management of the city’s infrastructure
• Increasing resident participation in water consumption and usage

CUSTOMER INFORMATION SYSTEM

THE CHALLENGE

• The existing Customer Information System (CIS) did not support the unique billing needs of their industrial commercial customers – which make up 70% of The City of Lima’s revenue. The legacy CIS delivered inaccurate bills and required manual water usage calculation and processing.
• The current CIS could not support the new Advanced Metering Technology slated to replace their aging water meters, which were no longer cost-effective to maintain or operationally effective.
• The existing CIS created an excess of customer care issues, from billing accuracy, to water consumption and reporting issues.
• Additionally, it did not allow residents easy access to their usage information. It lets them easily partner with The City of Lima to manage their water consumption and detect leaks or high water usage.

THE SOLUTION

• UMS and the City of Lima replaced the legacy Customer Information System (CIS) with Advanced Utility Systems (Advanced), a new, modern-enterprise-based CIS that effectively addresses evolving operational demands.
• Advanced CIS met their industrial and commercial customers and city residents' unique needs. The new CIS:
  • Ensures accuracy of data, for example, consistent addresses, street names, contact information
  • Generates accurate billing
  • Provides efficient collections, from remittance to collections
  • Accurately tracks water consumption
  • Provides flexible reporting

THE RESULTS

• Reduced manual industrial billing process by 45% - eliminating the time-consuming task of manually entering information into the billing system.
• Improved data integration and delivered 80% efficiency gain – the new Advanced CIS enables automated data transfer from meters to internal billing systems.
• Increased ability to track key metrics, including Shut-off rates and Man-hours for meter reading

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

THE CHALLENGE

• The legacy GIS was created to support Waste Management (specifically). It was not built or structured to serve the information and decision-making requirements of The City of Lima and its residents holistically.
• Information and data were siloed in department(s) and were not easily accessed or sharable across city governments, departments, or teams.
• The legacy GIS reflected:
  • Decentralized data/information sharing across Allen County tax records, firehouse software, eGov Utilities, CityWorks, Information Systems, etc.
  • No central data repository/data integration
  • 55 different software programs (not integrated, except for finance)
  • Data flow gaps, including:
    • Emergency Response Information
    • Grants Tracking
    • Maintenance Management
    • The goal of the new GIS was to get the whole city upon GIS.

THE SOLUTION

• Allowing people from government workers to residents to access GIS information on their own frees workers and provides data ad resources when needed. This model for smart cities with open and connected spatial data allows planners, managers, and the public to understand what needs to be done and lets them access the proper tools and resources to achieve those goals.
• The City of Lima, with consultation from UMS, selected Esri ArcGIS to deliver a process and framework for gathering, managing, and analyzing data across the city. From public works, to engineering, and The Mayor’s Office, the new ArcGIS provides consistent access to data and information to all departments and to all residents
• The new GIS lets the City of Lima:
  • Set priorities based on spatial analysis, including crime patterns, public safety issues, etc., public officials can identify geographical areas of concern
  • Manage and respond to events such as weather and show potential impact on communities, etc.
  • Quickly isolate underground water leaks, respond faster to main breaks, and prioritize capital improvement spending based on GIS data.
  • Standardize and improve daily workflows and processes between the office and the field.

THE RESULTS

• Improved Asset Management:
  • Manage vehicles and other city assets to improve financial and operational resources.
  • Ability to track maintenance, identify end of life, or make a decision to purchase new
• Reduced fuel cost by 30% and Improved Overall Operational Management
  • Manage vehicles and other city assets to improve financial and operational resources.
  • Streamlined fuel operations – removing redundancy of two separate fuel operations (across public works and the utility)
• Delivered a system that can communicate with residents and give them a feedback loop to the city.

• Implemented an Enterprise System with cross-functional communication across departments and across the city:
  • an One system to track data service requests
  • For example, the Utility and Public Works work closely together, for such things as sewer lines that need repair...with the new GIS, the utility can add information about the work, and it’s flagged to public works
• Data is consistently shared across the city and provides access to residents and city workers to help make decisions.

WORK ORDER MANAGEMENT

THE CHALLENGE

• The City of Lima did not have a Work Order Management System (WOM) and was using spreadsheets to manage work orders
• Needed Integrated Work Order System to track how much the City was spending on maintenance of assets and properties, including putting each department on the same platform to increase communication and one central location for tracking assets, work orders and citizen requests
• Needed an efficient tracking system to quickly share data and information across department to make timely decisions

THE SOLUTION

• Allowing people from government workers to residents to access GIS information on their own frees workers and provides data and resources when needed. This model for smart cities with open and connected spatial data allows planners, managers, and the public to understand what needs to be done and lets them access the proper tools and resources to achieve those goals.

THE RESULTS

• The ability to now share information with the public
• The City of Lima is now a great stuart of resources