Scottish Water:
It takes Committed Cooperation to Plug Leaks Fast
Client Ambition
With leakage being a key customer, organisation and stakeholder concern, Scottish Water wanted to demonstrate that leakage is well managed.
As part of a wider leakage reduction programme, a target was set to repair 80% of all customer reported leaks within three working days without significantly increasing operational cost. Reducing leakage repair cycles from between seven to fifteen days, to three working days, provides a valuable contribution to Scottish Water's annual leakage target as well as benefiting customers.
Enter VISION
VISION undertook an analysis of the existing repair process, identifying a range of opportunities for improvement that would reduce cycle times. A redesign was proposed, starting with a clear leakage fix promise to the customer and then ensuring promise alignment of all parties involved in the leakage repair process. To support this customer promise a comprehensive suite of end-to-end management information was created to allow all leaks to be monitored from customer call to completed repair.
Using the VISION design, the new leakage repair process was piloted in the Clyde (Greater Glasgow) region followed by a second region (Nith) that covered a range of urban and rural infrastructure.
Using Commitment Based Management (CBM) principles, VISION led the implementation using 'in the moment' coaching of operational staff to make and keep leakage promises to each other so that the customer repair promise of three working days was met. Using CBM techniques also allowed managers to demonstrate that they "had their finger on the pulse" and were driving the right behaviours and practices to deliver results and not constrained by corporate reports.
VISION also demonstrated that the existing technology could enhance coordination and productivity without additional investment.
Results
Scottish Water quickly transformed to work as a unified team across the leakage process from capturing the customer request, to leak assessment, to planning a repair and through to fixing the leak. VISION demonstrated that over 80% of customer reported leaks could be fixed within three working days and that this change was sustainable. Scottish Water's own customer survey showed an increase of customer satisfaction from 78% to 97%.
Value Delivered
- Reduced leakage repair cycles from fifteen to three working days (80%) without extra resource /costs
- Improved utilisation and productivity of field based staff
- Improved communication and decision making in the use of external contractors
- Better co-ordination and trust between planning and the field with corresponding morale improvements
- Improved customer relationships with better informed and satisfied customers
- Peer leading performance
Client satisfaction
Through our leakage cycle time project we have not only delivered significant reductions in
lost water but some very tangible customer service improvements
Mark Dickson, Head of Customer Services, Scottish Water