Thursday, October 29, 2009

North America's Most Reliable and Customer-Friendly Utilities Recognized by PA Consulting Group at the 2009 ReliabilityOne(TM) and ServiceOne Awards

Last night, PA Consulting Group announced the winners of its annual ReliabilityOne(TM)( )and ServiceOne( )Awards -- widely recognized as one of the electric utility industry's most prestigious honors -- at a reception in New York City, before an audience that included senior management at leading utilities and industry regulators. The ReliabilityOne(TM)( )awards are given annually to utilities that have excelled in delivering reliable electric service to their customers, while the ServiceOne awards are based on a set of criteria that covers nearly all the functional areas within customer service operations typical for a North American utility.

For the second consecutive year, Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) was the recipient of the National Reliability Excellence Award. PSE&G, which also received the ReliabilityOne(TM)( )award for the Mid-Atlantic Region as well as the inaugural award for Enterprise Wide Best Practice in Transmission & Distribution, is a regulated utility delivering electric service to 2.1 million customers throughout New Jersey. The National Reliability Excellence Award is presented to the regional award recipient that has served as a consistent leader through demonstrated performance and a superior commitment to electric reliability.

Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) received both the ReliabilityOne(TM)( )Award for the Northeast Region as well as the award for Outstanding System Wide Reliability. Con Edison excelled in providing superior outage frequency and duration performance on a system wide basis. Con Edison serves 3.2 million electric customers in New York City and Westchester.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) received the ReliabilityOne(TM)( )Award for the Western Region. SDG&E is a Sempra Energy utility serving 3.4 million consumers in San Diego and southern Orange counties.

Kansas City Power & Light, a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy, Inc. and a leading regulated provider of electricity and energy-related products and services to more than 800,000 customers in Missouri and Kansas was the recipient of the ReliabilityOne(TM)( )Award for the Plains Region.

We Energies, which offers electricity to 1.1 million customers in portions of Wisconsin and Michigan, was the recipient of the ReliabilityOne(TM)( )Award for the Midwest Region.

Roseville Electric, based in Roseville, CA, a suburb of Sacramento and provider of electricity to 52,000 residential and business customers, was the recipient of the Community Utility ReliabilityOne(TM)( )Award. This award is given to a public utility that provides outstanding service to its community customers.

The ReliabilityOne(TM)( )award is given annually to utilities that have excelled in delivering reliable electric service to their customers. All utilities operating electric delivery networks in North America are eligible for consideration for the ReliabilityOne(TM)( )award. Selection of provisional recipients is based primarily on system reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of customer outages. After provisional recipients are selected, each company undergoes an on-site certification process, which provides an independent review of the policies, processes and systems used to collect, analyze and report a company's reliability results.

PA also recognized those utilities that excel in the area of customer service and care with the presentation of the ServiceOne( )awards. The recipient of the 2009 ServiceOne( )award was Florida Power & Light, which serves 4.4 million customers throughout Florida. With this year's award, FPL becomes the only utility to have won the ServiceOne award six times.

Awards were given to utilities that excelled in functional areas within customer service for a typical North American utility. This year's Balanced Scorecard Achievement Award recipients are:

  • Contact Center - Florida Power & Light
  • Field Service - Entergy
  • Meter Reading - Dominion
  • Billing - Dominion
  • Payment - First Energy
  • Credit & Collections - NorthWestern Energy
  • Revenue Assurance - NiSource - Indiana

The ServiceOne award is based on a set of criteria that covers nearly all the functional areas within customer service operations typical for a North American utility. These functional areas include the contact center, billing, payment, revenue protection, credit and collections, meter reading and safety. Utilities that participate in PA Consulting Group's annual Polaris performance benchmarking program are considered for a ServiceOne award. While PA administers the program, an advisory committee consisting of members within the Polaris program provides advice regarding its content and criteria.

Additional information on PA's Polaris benchmarking program can be found at http://www.paconsulting.com/industries/energy/merchant-utility/utility-merchant-tools/polaris/.

About PA Consulting Group

At PA Consulting Group, we transform the performance of organizations, providing clients with innovative solutions, a highly responsive approach, and delivery of hard results. We are an independent, employee-owned, global firm of 3,000 talented individuals, operating from offices across the world, in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Oceania. We have deep expertise across key industries and government, and a unique breadth of skills from strategy to IT to HR to applied technology.

About PA's Polaris program


PA's Polaris program is a comprehensive discovery process into a utility's business operations. The program, consisting of a general review of organization practices, in addition to a focus on Transmission and Distribution and/or Customer Service, focuses on this discovery process by taking an inventory of the strengths and opportunities of a utility.

Our benchmarking program includes a review of asset management strategy, business process mapping, and cost analysis. In addition, a focus exists on customer satisfaction, expenses review, health and safety review and analysis of the regulatory environment. The concepts of shareholder value and training are also included.

Since 1989, PA has benchmarked operational trends across 250 utility-operating companies nation wide.

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