12-07-12 BPU RPT 04 - Laserfiche WebLink

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W A T £ R E N E R G Y I I k F RIVERSIDE PUBLIC UTILITIES Board Memorandum PUBLIC UTILITIES BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITIES DATE: December 7, 2012 ITEM NO: 4 SUBJECT: FIRST AMENDMENT TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH WESTIN ENGINEERING FOR THE DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ISSUE: That the Board of Public Utilities consider approval of a First Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with Westin Engineering for consulting services for the Data Management System. RECOMMENDATION: That the Board of Public Utilities approve the First Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with Westin Engineering, Inc. in the amount of$90,709 for consulting services. BACKGROUND: Through its operations, Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) produces thousands of bits of data each day. This data is valuable to all sectors of the Utility, including management, engineering, operations and customer support. However, the existing processes for managing this vast amount of data are inefficient and impair decision making capability. For example, some of the data is gathered by hand and stored on written documents making this information difficult to retrieve and analyze. Some data is transcribed into a digital format, but each transcription increases the risk of data errors. The data that is stored electronically is placed into multiple formats (i.e. spreadsheets, SQL databases, Access databases, etc.) and is located in disparate locations with varying accessibilities, which makes data analysis cumbersome. To improve operational efficiency, the Water Division (Water) solicited proposals from consulting firms to lead staff through a change management process and ultimately develop a data organization structure based on Water's operation requirements. Following this planning effort, the consultant would develop a Request for Proposals (RFP) and would assist in selecting an Operations Database Management System (ODMS) solution that would best suit Water's needs. In August 2011, the Board of Public Utilities approved an agreement with Westin Engineering, Inc. (Westin) to perform this work. Westin completed the master planning and drafted a specification to procure the ODMS. Before submitting the specification to vendors, staff performed an internal review and determined that an ODMS would also provide a substantial benefit to the Energy Delivery Division (Electric) at a low incremental cost. To this end, Westin provided a proposal to review Electric's business processes and modify the ODMS specification so that the procured software will suit the needs of both Water and Electric. In addition to providing ODMS services, Westin developed an Asset Management Roadmap (Roadmap) for Water. Among other things, the Roadmap recommends that Water use SPL, an existing City software program, as a basis for the asset management system. The first step to creating an asset management system is to develop a structured hierarchy, which if done properly will reduce the costs of implanting and increase the benefits of using an asset management system. As Westin has expertise in both asset management and SPL, staff requested a quote from them to assist with the development of a structure hierarchy that will fully utilize the capabilities of SPL.