CLASS Belt Certifications
YELLOW BELT
Meter-Reading Scheduling
Project Leader: Todd Sondrini (Shared Field Services)
Team Members: Vanessa Cook, Theresa White
Todd Sondrini's project created a scheduling process that eliminated the daily route adjustments (minus adjustments for call-ins).
Benefits: Prior to the scheduling changes, there were an average of 65 call-ins per month from January through June 2022 compared to 47 from January through June 2023. There were 21 Forced Completes due to staffing from January through July 2022 compared to eight from January through July 2023. A combination of this project and the Route Risk Analysis Green Belt project reduced Forced Completes. The amount of time saved for coordinators is approximately three hours per day (780 hours per year), which is utilized for other tasks.
Generators & Pumps Oil Analysis
Project Leader: David Foster (Environmental Stewardship)
Team Members: Chris Barron, Steve Berube, Stuart Donaldson
David Foster’s project created a process to reduce Water Production’s engine oil change labor and material costs.
Benefits: Based on 41 oil changes as of January 2023, the net reduction of 39 oil changes saves approximately $39,810 per year.This program will continue to produce annual savings for Water Production.
Standard Bond Reconciliations
Project Leader: Debra Scott (Accounting)
Team Members: Jason Howard, Sarah Kidwell, James No
Debra’s project focused on reducing the variation between bond reconciliations, as well as the time spent reviewing and collecting data for the year-end summary.
Benefits: In June 2023, only 3.03% of bonds were different from the information being collected/reviewed. This is expected to reduce to 0% over the next few months as the master files are consistently used. Additionally, the new process is estimated to save on average 20 hours by reducing the review of bonds from 15 minutes to 10 minutes as well as eliminating the two to three hours of data collection for the annual year-end audit.
ADVANCED YELLOW BELT
Westfield Wastewater IURC Reporting Improvements
Project Leader: Ed Bukovac (Water Production & Distribution)
Team Members: Debi Bardhan-Akala, Sara Mamuska-Morris, Tom Price, Camela Johnson
Ed Bukovac’s project developed a method to accurately forecast Net Operating Income (NOI)/Rate of Return (ROI), thus reducing the variation from actuals to budget while providing more data visability.
Benefits: The new process will measure the amount of reduction in this variance from actuals to projections every month and show a reduction in projected error. The ultimate goal is remaining within 10% of the projection at the end of the year.
Recently Completed Just Do It (JDI) Projects
Just Do It projects are a great way to continuously improve something where the solution is already known. This doesn't mean it necessarily has to be a quick or simple project; it just doesn't go through the DMAIC process. Just Do It projects can still make a big impact on efficiency and savings. All completed Just Do It projects can be found on Quality’s CI Activities and Completed Projects page.
- Defect Collection: John Eddington (Gas)
- Gas Transmission Station Security: John Eddington (Gas)
- Valve Maintenance Improvements: Jeremy Lafara (Gas)
- Spanish Interpreter Calls: Randy Rollins (Billing & Customer Service)
- Waverly Collection Line: Tony Isenberger (Water Production)
- ACE Process Improvements: Kevin Hackett (Wastewater Collections)
- 146th Street Tower Project Relief: Paul Stultz (Westfield)
- Energy Budget Load: Christina Clark (Accounting)
- Perry K PLC Eliminiation: Ron Lee (Thermal)
- Vault Standards: Sarah Wittig (Plant Engineering)
- Lift Station Project Close Out Documentation Improvements: Justin Burnett (UE&C)
- Raising the Effluent Weir: Dan Kramer (Plant Engineering)
- ACE Dashboard: Kevin Hackett (Wastewater Collections)
- Website Redesign: John Meehan (Billing & Customer Service)
- MPU Benchmark: Jackie Hoang (Regulatory Affairs)
- Miscellaneous Billing: Katrina Revere (Accounting)
- Jira Management Tool: Jennifer Velikan & Jake Ford (Information Technology)
- Managing BRC Opportunities: Sarah MacKay & Nathan Jeffery (Information Technology)
- Westfield WWTP Dissolved Oxygen (DO): Fred Hedges (Westfield)
