Illinois Commerce Commission New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Maine Public Utilities Commission

Illinois Commerce Commission

A workforce adequacy review for the five electric utilities operating in Illinois (ComEd, AmerenIP, AmerenCIPS, AmerenCILCO, MEC).

The scope included:

• Maintenance and Operations―included the dispatch function, the call center during normal operations, minor outages and major outages, emergency escalation procedures, troubleshooting, coordination with other emergency agencies, mutual aid arrangements, crew mobilization, utilization of contractor forces, maintenance planning, maintenance cycles, maintenance work accomplishment, backlogs, workplace barriers, staffing adequacy, crew sizes, system inspections, vegetation management, quality control, and use of contractors.  We also examined the level of technology enablers employed to support this function.
• Training and Safety―included the new apprentice and continuing training programs for line workers, meter staff, and call center customer service representatives.  We also reviewed the importance of safety in ComEd’s organization, related training and the safety results achieved.
• Quality Review― included a review of ComEd’s quality assurance programs and observations of ComEd’s electric distribution facilities to determine the quality of work performed both by in-house and outsourced/contracted personnel.
• Call Center―included call center metrics to gauge the level of customer support.  We reviewed call center changes, emergency escalation procedures, public agency communication provisions, and customer satisfaction surveys.  We also examined the level of technology enablers employed to support this function.

Recommendations included:

Operations & Maintenance Staffing

• Conduct a strategic workforce planning study to identify workforce needs
• Aggressively continue to fulfill staffing levels as per existing staff plans
• Update staffing plans annually to reflect changing market conditions
• Strive to reduce high level of overtime
• Balance in-house vs. contracted/outsourced line work
• Proactively increase the level of apprentices
• Improve the ability to forecast future journeyman retirements as an input to the staffing plan reviews
• Review pay parity to attract journeymen into line supervision positions
• Consider centralized distribution design
• Consider the potential of implementing roving construction crews

Training and Safety

• Evaluate participating in the National Joint Apprentice and Training Committee (NJACT) to enhance the cost effectiveness of training qualified craft workers
• Participate in ongoing safety benchmarking surveys to identify potential best practices.
• Enhance technical training for line supervisors with little or no direct field work experience.

Quality Assurance

• Assure a formalized documentation process is in place for quality inspections
• Expand internal distribution system inspection processes to include more definitive reviews of vegetation encroachment as a second set of eyes for vegetation managers
• Increase the number of QA inspectors, as needed, to permit a larger sample of the system to be inspected annually.
• Implement strengthened quality assurance report for contracted work

New Jersey Board of Public Utilities

Conducted a due diligence review of the customer service area on behalf of the NJBPU for the proposed Exelon/PSE&G merger.

Focus areas included:

• Customer service
• Call Center
• Information Technology
• Proposed Merger Synergies

Suggested Merger Stipulations included:

Call Center

• Design and implement Service Level Agreements and reports to include metrics and possible penalties for:
• Appointments (both for Appliance Service and for other matters)
• Call center service level (ASA)
• Call abandonment
• The format for these reports should be modeled on the existing ComEd report(s)
• Maintain existing call centers in Cranford and Bordentown for a period of 8 years
• Defer planned staffing reductions in the call centers and revenues processing areas until after the new customer information system is implemented and stabilized.
• Assure that adequate staffing will be in place during the customer information system implementation and stabilization – this may require added staff.

Customer Care/Service

• Maintain local authority in NJ at least equal to VP of Customer Care currently as in place at PSE&G
• Maintain existing 16 customer service centers for 8 years
• Best practices and their implementation should be tracked and reported to the NJBPU.

Street Lights

• Meet at least ComEd/PECO re-lamping performance of 3 days or less and assure public safety reports are handled in one day.
• This to be reported as part of the Annual Report; a new reporting format will need to be developed to capture these data.

Appliance Service

• Maintain the existing Appliance Service function for 8 years

Credit & Collections

• Provide for meeting with BPU immediately following merger approval (if approved) to lay out the reporting and communication plan for this area, which should include:
• Establishing regular reporting to the BPU, especially for shut-offs and reasonable payment arrangements
• Delineate termination program for summer time (air conditioning)
• This to be reported as part of the Annual Report; a new reporting format will need to be developed to capture these data
• Implement a Residential Billing Accuracy as a part of overall Service Level metrics based on existing ComEd report(s) in this area.

Maine Public Utilities Commission

Conducted a comprehensive distribution system condition assessment on behalf of the MPUC for Central Maine Power. 

The assessment included a review of:

• Operating and maintenance procedures
• Staff levels
• Physical field condition inspection of the company’s electric distribution system, based on a statistically valid sample.

Recommendations included:

• Consider revising Alternative Rate Plan metrics to provide more challenging and realistic targets and consider providing “upside” incentives for exceeding the targets.
• Improve records retention procedures to provide ready access to betterment project history.
• Enhance pole inspection process to include pole sounding and visual checks at the pole
• Include an assessment of vegetation encroachment as an integral part of the line inspections
• Implement focused inspection programs for aging assets
• Adopt a more frequent vegetation management trim cycle to better match species growth.