UPDATED 16:29 EDT / JULY 11 2016

NEWS

Getting more than water from the cloud | #Inforum16

A public utility is a regulated agency, and as technology changes, the ability to report to one’s governing body and improve the customer experience is important. One municipal water district in California is moving water to the cloud to improve operational efficiency, and to prepare for the next-generation of technology to improve the customer experience.

Jim Ollerton, director of Information Technology at Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District in California, spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and George Gilbert (@ggilbert41), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Inforum 2016 at the Javits Center in New York City today. Ollerton discussed how the mid-sized utility is doing with its migration to the cloud.

Moving from legacy to cloud

Governed by a five-member, publicly elected Board, the public utility employs 170 people and provides water and wastewater management services to 170,000 consumers. The company placed a mandate on IT to make the transition to the cloud due to internal design changes on the General Ledger (CL), but the legacy Lawson Software on-premise software system made it impossible.

The water company moved to the Infor CloudSuite Financials and Supply Management, which provided the ability to define user dimensions in the general ledger code block.

“We had an organizational goal to redesign our GL, which aligned with our goal of participating in the [Infor] early adopter program … we could do what we wanted to do with the new system, and Infor welcomed us as an early adopter because of our organizational goal. We’re not doing a straight migration of our setup. Instead, we’re taking advantage of the great capabilities of the new ERP system,” Ollerton said.

User-friendly and customer friendly

The migration will provide cost savings, primarily in labor and overtime, while offering a user-friendly interface.

“We will be able to accomplish all of our reporting needs and all of our different reporting requirements, being a public agency, out of the box. That’s how we envision it,” Ollerton explained. He continued by explaining how Infor has made good on its promise to Lawson Software customers in developing a product that delivers a great financial and ERP system. According to Ollerton, it has been a real game changer for the company, which is already three months into the project.

“It’s very promising, and our end-users have really embraced it,” he commented.

Over the next two years Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District is updating its utility billing system and deploying smart meters to all its customers. Ollerton sees the opportunity to use IoT technology in order to provide better customer service in the future by notifying customers of any issues or leaks in a timely manner.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Inforum 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE

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