The Onondaga County, N.Y., Water Authority (OCWA) recently combined its financial, billing and asset management software into one Web-based system to more easily track maintenance activities and manage its budget. The computer system overhaul is helping OCWA deliver water service to 340,000 customers in 26 towns and 15 villages and maintain thousands of miles of infrastructure.

When OCWA leaders learned in 1999 that their customer billing software vendor no longer supported the application, they decided to replace and modernize all of the utility's information systems, which were eight years old and relied on outdated database software. Because OCWA only had a three-person IT department, the replacement needed to be relatively simple to install and maintain. “We were determined to put [the software] in place without any modifications or custom coding,” says Michael Hooker, OCWA's executive director.

Utility leaders chose to integrate three software applications into one Web-based system. The hybrid system — Conquest — integrates Maximo asset management software from Bedford, Mass.-based MRO Software with financial and human resources software from St. Paul, Minn.-based Lawson, and customer management applications from Atlanta-based Indus International. Conquest consolidates all of OCWA's operations — including maintenance tracking, meter reading, billing, work orders, purchasing, labor and human resources — into one IT system.

The utility organized three employee groups to work with a team of consultants and the program manager, Syracuse, N.Y.-based Strategic Computer Solutions, to integrate each software package. Eighteen months later in early 2004, all software systems were live.

As part of the project, OCWA added an online payment application so customers can setup recurring bank drafts or pay their water bills with a credit card. Online payments are reflected immediately in the utility's accounting software. Customers also can review their payment histories and analyze past water use through the Web site.

Behind the scenes, the new system has automated the utility's work orders, materials management and inventory. It tracks all goods and services purchased, the inventory at 26 storerooms in seven locations and 19 mobile storerooms and materials issued to contractors.

An average of 3,500 work orders are generated, tracked and managed in the system each month, and linked to the human resources and financial systems to generate bills. By linking that information together, utility managers can respond quickly to daily needs and emergencies, such as when winter storms wreak havoc on water mains. “It enabled us to be more responsive and efficiently handle equipment repairs at a time when weather can put extreme stress on the maintenance and operation of the water system,” Hooker says.

OCWA is integrating GeoMedia WebMap geographic information system (GIS) technology from Madison, Ala.-based Intergraph into Conquest to improve work planning and maintenance. When completely deployed later this year, the GIS will help track the location and condition of water mains, valves, hydrants, meters and storage facilities.

Because OCWA purchased three separate Web-based software products and did not customize any of them, it can upgrade features and new versions with relatively little downtime. “Software upgrades are a huge hassle with big enterprise suites,” Hooker says. “By comparison, we were able to upgrade to a new version of [one software program] without a hitch in half a day.”