EWEB
Completes Successful Roll-Out of the
CrewManager work order and crew
scheduling system
SANTA MONICA, CA. January 30, 2009.
The Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) has
successfully launched the CrewManager work order
and crew scheduling software from Unique
Business Systems.
EWEB is Oregon's largest citizen-owned utility.
Chartered by the city of Eugene as a municipal
utility with a separate elected board, EWEB
provides electricity, water and steam heat to
its customers.
CrewManager is a work management system uniquely
built around a core crew scheduling engine.
Leading city utilities use CrewManager to
generate or import work orders, estimate labor
hours, create materials lists, schedule crews
with a simple drag-and-drop, manage time
keeping, and view reports and metrics.
EWEB’s teams from Electric Distribution and
Water Construction are using CrewManager daily
to handle work orders, schedule crews on jobs,
and measure estimated to actual hours. Users are
able to electronically manage new jobs and
monitor the progress on existing ones, within a
uniform system available to all departments.
System Engineering & Substation Reliability and
Generation are slated to begin using CrewManager
in April 2009. Other EWEB departments are
evaluating CrewManager for use in their areas.
Integrations between several of EWEB’s legacy
work management applications and CrewManager
have been successfully completed using the
CrewManager Integration Module. Now, at the
click of a button in the legacy applications,
job data gets sent over to CrewManager. “With
this data, EWEB staff is able to generate full
work orders in CrewManager and then schedule
crews to these jobs”, says Jim Gralow IT Project
Manager for the CrewManager implementation.
“CrewManager supplied the missing piece to the
puzzle,” says Configuration Manager and Project
Sponsor Larry George. “We can now manage and
schedule work using CrewManager in the front
end, while still being able to use our legacy
work management applications in the back end and
exporting their data to CrewManager.”
During 2005-2007 EWEB conducted an internal
study analyzing the utility’s work data flow
across all functional departments. The Project
Team concluded that a tool was needed to enable
scheduling of all work and also to tie the
various incumbent systems together.
After a thorough evaluation of work management
and scheduling products in the utility market,
EWEB awarded the contract to Unique Business
Systems in March of 2008.
Bryan Bradford, Implementation Phase Project
Manager, says, “It’s nice to see the project
moving along so well. The workgroups have done a
great job configuring the software. We asked
ourselves what the true mark of success would be
for the project and determined that if people
used it and it became the way of doing business
then that would be a success. After only four
months of operation with the first workgroups we
are approaching the 1000 job mark…enough said.
UBS has been great to work with and answer all
our questions. Their great customer support has
also contributed to the success of the project.”
“We have found the right partner in UBS,”
concludes Larry George. “They supplied software
that has enhanced our existing work process and
helped make the parts work as a whole. We are
looking forward to completing the critical
integrations, and generating central reports
from CrewManager with inputs from various EWEB
systems.”
About EWEB: Founded in 1911 as the Eugene Water
Board, the utility became a full service water
and electricity supplier in 1916. EWEB today
covers a service area of 235 square miles and
supplies electricity to 87,000 homes and
businesses, and water to 51,000. EWEB is a
Municipal public utility, chartered by the City
of Eugene and is governed by a five-person
commission elected to four-year terms by the
citizens of Eugene.
www.eweb.org
About Unique Business Systems: Founded in 1982 in
Santa Monica, California, UBS is a
leading developer of software for
tracking assets and for planning work
and scheduling crews. The major
industries UBS services include Audio
Visual Staging & Rentals, Construction
Equipment Dealers, and Utilities.
www.unibiz.com
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Contact Information
Andy Ratan
Business Manager, Utilities
Unique Business Systems
Phone (310) 396-3929 x 193
Email. aratan@unibiz.com
Lance Robertson
Public Affairs Manager
Eugene Water and Electric Board
Phone (541) 484-2411
Email: lance.robertson@eweb.org
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