Lehigh County Authority Document Management ......Lehigh County Authority Document Management,...
26
Lehigh County Authority Document Management, Collaboration, and Work Flow Management Varun Sekar
Lehigh County Authority Document Management ......Lehigh County Authority Document Management, Collaboration, and Work Flow Management Varun Sekar \爀圀攀氀挀漀洀攀 屲Put
Lehigh County Authority Document Management, Collaboration, and Work Flow Management Varun Sekar
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Welcome Put your lines on mute
Acknowledgements Peter Burkhardt GHD David Gray Seth Yoskowitz
About Lehigh County Authority (LCA)
• Founded in 1966
• 600 miles of water mains
• Operates 14 water systems
• Wastewater services for 17 municipalities
• Employs 150+ staff of professional and skilled technical workers
• Serves 55,000+ customers
• Annual budget of $46M
• Performance emphasis Municipalities served by LCA Water and Wastewater systems
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The Lehigh County Authority (LCA) is a public water and wastewater utility: Serving more than 55,000 customers in Lehigh County and Northampton County, Pennsylvania Employs a staff of more than 150 professional and skilled technical workers 14 water systems and 600 miles of water mains Founded in 1966 Annual operating budget of $46M
LCA institutional knowledge loss
ü The average plant has over 1,000 distinct operations ü Turnover from retirements and job changes is increasing
Retirement eligible workforce
22 2008
35 2013
% %
Presenter
Presentation Notes
LCA is at risk for institutional knowledge loss with the increase of retirement eligibility among their workforce. From 2008 to 2013 the proportion of the workforce eligible for retirement increased by 13% to 35%. The average plant is comprised is approximately 1,000 operations. The skills and knowledge of these operation have long gone undocumented. In the past employees might have spent their whole career at a plant, but now employees are more likely to stay in a position for only a few years before moving on. This increased turnover intensifies the need to retain employees’ skills and knowledge so it may be effectively utilized by future employees.
Knowledge management EUC principles
Employee and leadership
development
Infrastructure stability
Financial viability
Operational optimization
Product quality
Customer satisfaction
Operational resiliency
Stakeholder understanding
and support
Water resource adequacy
Community sustainability
Presenter
Presentation Notes
It is critical that both explicit and tacit knowledge be captured. Unlike explicit knowledge, which is easy to write down or express to another person, tacit knowledge is more difficult to transfer, must be taught or learned over time.
LCA Career Path Program
O&M Technical focused career path
Tacit Experience,
Skills, Difficult to Document
Presenter
Presentation Notes
GHD developed an Operations & Maintenance Career path based on the competencies segmented and categorized into a skill matrix and documented through Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). This informs the number of Utility Technician levels that support progression from the entry level hire through the master level of expertise.
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)s and O&M Work Catalog
Documentation through SOP Template • Knowledge capture • Facilitates use of
technology tools • Linkage to skills, training
and work tracking
Presenter
Presentation Notes
GHD developed an Operations & Maintenance Career Path based on a set of competencies segmented and categorized into a skill matrix and documented through Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). Development of this program involved substantial engagement of the O&M employees and leaders. The SOP Template contains data blocks to provide guidance for knowledge capture and facilitates the use of technology tools to enable linkage to skills, training and work tracking. An O&M work catalog was created based on work completed during SOP development. Contained in this catalog is a listing of all work processes completed by the department, their frequency of occurrence (daily, weekly, monthly, annually), and the SME for each process. This catalog informs the remaining tasks in program development.
O&M Career Path Program skills matrix
Tacit Experience,
Skills, Difficult to Document
Leve
ls o
f ski
ll di
fficu
lty
Col
lect
ion
syst
em
mai
nten
ance
Plan
t ope
ratio
ns
Elec
tric
al
Inst
rum
enta
tion
Dis
trib
utio
n sy
stem
m
aint
enan
ce
Wel
l sta
tion
mai
nten
ance
Mec
hani
cal
Equi
pmen
t ope
ratio
ns &
m
aint
enan
ce
Cus
tom
er s
ervi
ce &
m
eter
ing
Safe
ty
Mis
cella
neou
s
Tota
l
6 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 9
5 3 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 16 39
4 14 2 20 19 9 3 15 1 0 0 12 102
3 4 8 6 14 9 6 22 11 1 1 11 82
2 12 2 0 5 18 7 11 5 16 7 12 84
1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 11 1 8 2 25
Total 34 16 27 40 39 16 48 28 18 16 59 341
Presenter
Presentation Notes
A Masters Skill List was developed using analyzing the documented Standard Operating Procedures and work catalog, representing every skill used to complete work processes. The product of this exercise informs the number of Utility Technician levels that support progression from the entry level hire through the master level of expertise. The skills were placed in specific categories defined by level of difficulty and content, and organized into the skills matric.
Benefits
ü Increased employee engagement ü Increased employee retention ü Greater opportunities for internal promotion ü Recruitment of new hires ü Opportunities for increased productivity ü Knowledge transfer and retention
Presenter
Presentation Notes
There are many benefits to developing a career path program, and encouraging employees in their career progression. These benefits include: Increased employee engagement Retain employees Internal promotion Attract new hires Increase and/or maintain productivity Knowledge transfer and retention
Challenges identified during the career path program
How can collaboration, information automation, & information exchange be improved throughout LCA?
The information available on LCA’s existing intranet site allowed LCA to provide links to common resources that were requested by staff and internal stakeholders, but how can functionality for automation, collaborative development, workflow management, document archiving, and two-way exchange of information be improved to meet LCA’s growing needs?
MS SharePoint primary functions
Document management / library
Dashboard / data visualization
Finding & managing skills
Intranet & communication
Team rooms & collaboration
• Demonstration and discussion of available functionality in SharePoint
• Brainstorming discussion as to what functionality may be beneficial to the group
Needs Assessment Workshop
MS SharePoint project development
Potential solutions
• Collaborative team sites
• Online skills registry database
• Real-time and near real-time interactive dashboards with Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
• Skills training database
• Updated interactive intranet
Functional needs
assessment
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Working directly with representatives from each of LCA’s functional divisions, GHD gathered key information and developed a functional needs assessment report, which included recommendations for improvements. Through these sessions with LCA staff, a number of potential solutions were determined, including: collaborative team sites an online skills registry database real-time and near real-time interactive dashboards with Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) skills training database a revised, interactive intranet allowing for two-way communication and collaboration Key stakeholder feedback received during the evaluation process included a stated need for there to be simple access to information, such as “I need help with directories,” and improved management of customer service items and requests. Two project Phases were Developed: Phase one 1. Define work of LCA by developing Activity Lists for all Functional Areas 2. Develop Knowledge Maps Indicating where Knowledge Resides Phase two 1. Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Workflow Diagrams of Processes to Capture Explicit Knowledge 2. Design and Deploy Mentoring and Coach as well as Workflow Diagrams to Capture Tacit Knowledge 3. Organization Change Drives New Tasks: Career Path Program for O&M Staff This Presentation Focus: Phase Two of the Program Including New Tasks
LCA Board Notes Management Workflow
Task assigned to individual
Edit MS Word doc Template
Email to staff
Develop task list
Workshop meeting
Individual review
Staff meeting
Implement edits from Workshop
Final template for staff use
Finalize new template
Sample workflow
Presenter
Presentation Notes
GHD has found in the past that images and diagrams are the most effective way to illustrate a workflow use case, so a number of flow diagrams and site template diagrams were created to ensure both GHD and LCA were in agreement as to what needed to be developed.
Easily changeable
User specific privileges
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Two workflows were developed for LCA. One is the new hire workflow. Example of the new hire workflow
Document management
User specification
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The second workflow is board notes.
Application steps
Applicant information
Task status
Document management
User modification tracking
Site links Task
assignments
Task status
Task management
sample
Calendar
Announcements
Tasks
Presenter
Presentation Notes
A customer service site was developed through Sharepoint
sample
Track performance
over time
Levels of Service
Data visualization
Presenter
Presentation Notes
SharePoint tracks key performance indicators. These KPI’s are used to track the performance in accordance to levels of service developed by LCA.
MS SharePoint benefits
ü Discover, share and collaborate on content from anywhere on any device
ü Build a user friendly web-portal for your business
ü Develop a site for BI content such as data connections, reports, scorecards, and dashboards
ü Create, approve and publish a large, dynamic collection of content
ü Solid, scalable search engine capable of coping with large data sets
ü Close the gap between users and groups in LCA to better utilize information