Business Impact Summary
Xcel had a vision of increased customer responsiveness, reduced cost structure, and real-time access to critical business information. Ventyx offered a real-time view of all equipment, work and personnel, allowing decision-makers visibility and control over operational performance. Ventyx's solutions helped Xcel Energy enhance and optimize the interaction of processes involving customers, assets, and the workforce.
[Back to top]
The Company
Xcel Energy is a major U.S. electricity and natural gas company with regulated operations in eight Western and Midwestern states. Xcel Energy provides a comprehensive portfolio of energy-related products and services to 3.4 million electricity customers and 1.9 million natural gas customers through its regulated operating companies. Company headquarters are located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
[Back to top]
The Challenge
Xcel Energy, a major U.S. electricity and natural gas company, wanted to improve customer responsiveness, reduce its cost structure, and provide real-time access to critical business information. To achieve its objectives, Xcel Energy's management team envisioned business transformation through a unique technology alliance. The company wanted its strategic technology providers to pull together their individual applications into a seamlessly integrated business information system. Through what became known as the Utility Innovations initiative, Xcel Energy selected and motivated partners to work outside the realm of what they know and develop the art of what is possible.
Before system rollout, the Utility Innovations initiative had to be tested and validated in a microcosm environment before the solution would be rolled out to Xcel Energy's 80 service centers across an 11-state service territory.
The requirements:
- Provide a comprehensive view of all work and all resources, while automating and optimizing scheduling of work crews, equipment and materials
- Improve design and construction workforce effectiveness through mobile technology, while decreasing wait time for dispatching in the service center
- Reduce field time, redesign, and job holds for materials
- Optimize asset performance and lifecycle costs
- Ensure timely and accurate status reporting, work completion, and job close out
- Close out all associated costs for accurate customer billing and job cost accounting
- Monitor KPIs for costs, manpower utilization, service level agreements, and other decision-making criteria
- Provide greater visibility into operations for greater reliability and efficiency, and reduced risk
[Back to top]
The Solution
Ventyx solutions held the key components of the total integrated solution for Xcel Energy’s Utility Innovations vision. Robust business solutions designed specifically for utilities and Connect-to-Everything integration technology enabled the Utility Innovations vision to become a reality. Ventyx Asset Suite was used to optimize the management of assets, work, and the supply chain—in the office and in the field. Ventyx Service Suite was chosen for its sophisticated field workforce scheduling, optimization, and mobile capabilities. Together they would support Xcel Energy’s workflow—from scheduling, design, construction to maintenance and inspection—and provide real-time, dashboard-style decision support.
[Back to top]
The Result
Ventyx's solutions helped Xcel Energy enhance and optimize the interaction of processes involving customers, assets, and the workforce. Asset Suite and Service Suite blend workforce optimization with asset management and mobile functionality, enabling the transformation of business processes throughout the entire work lifecycle. Using Ventyx, Xcel Energy has improved workforce scheduling, mobilized their workforce with all essential information at hand, and generated clear, accurate, and timely business metrics.
The Foundation Architecture simplified Xcel Energy's system integration requirements with a component-based approach. With its Connect-to-Everything framework, Foundation Architecture enabled the flexible and easy integration of Ventyx components with emerging technologies and complementary third-party software solutions.
At Arvada Service Center, a microcosm test environment, the results were extraordinary:
- 87% reduction of scheduling effort
- 26% improvement in designer productivity
- 17% reduction in maintenance and inspection effort
- 47% improvement in construction crew productivity
- Accurate designs and material lists
[Back to top]