Products
TriTek Solutions specializes in the delivery of customized ECM solutions, providing a wide array of applications and utilities in addition to its extensive portfolio of business services. TriTek offers a suite of foundation software products that incorporate common, universal functionality. This allows focused implementation efforts specific to each customer's needs, significantly reducing the time and cost of implementing customized solutions.
Utilities Solution Suite Notice of Violation
Compliance automation through Notice of Violation yields cost savings and improved government relations. TriTek's Utilities Solution Suite provides utilities companies with the tools they need to meet growing compliance demands through enterprise-wide system integration.
Business Challenges
Due to the nature of the work performed, utility companies must work hand in hand with state governments and municipalities to comply with various codes and regulations. Yet the process of handling corrective action requests and violations is many times overlooked. Oftentimes, fines are paid without proper due diligence – or worse yet, go unpaid, racking up interest and penalties, eroding profit margins.
Following an audit, a large US based energy company found its manual processing environment was interfering with the company's ability to properly evaluate and make informed decisions as to whether to pay or dispute Corrective Action Requests (CARs) and Notices of Violation (NOVs). While CARs are similar to parking tickets and can be paid immediately, NOVs or violations require a court appearance.
Not only was the company accepting all CARs and NOVs as part of the cost of doing business, but to further complicate matters, CARs and NOVs were often lost or paid late or incorrectly, straining the utility's relationship with the municipality and resulting in an excess of $1 million of avoidable annual costs due to fines and penalties.
Realizing that business process automation was the key to saving time and money, and improving its relationship with the city, the utility turned to TriTek, an IBM ECM ValueNet partner and expert in development and integration of applications within the Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management (BPM) markets.
The Solution
TriTek Solutions developed a Notice of Violation solution to help streamline permitting and violations processes at energy and utilities companies. This solution is part of the Utilities Solution Suite, a comprehensive enterprise content management and business process management solution leveraging the IBM FileNet P8 platform. The Notice of Violation component provides various user interfaces and accommodates dozens of compliance related business scenarios.
TriTek's solution provides end-to-end process automation and a complete document archive for permits, CARs, and NOVs, enabling utility personnel to better identify and analyze the circumstances of a citation in a timely manner, and respond accordingly. In instances where the citation is issued with cause and the utility is at fault, the system expedites the processing of the violation, eliminating costly penalties for late payments.
Value Proposition
Leveraging the TriTek solution, companies can benefit through:
- Improved executive visibility and performance management via reporting of work-in-progress and historical metrics;
- Task prioritization and a reduction in the overall processing cycle time, providing the needed time required to analyze, manage and respond to CARs and NOVs; and,
- Automated workflow that replaces traditionally manual processing such as issue logging, permit searching and copying, and routing via interoffice mail.
The utility referenced earlier receives approximately 8,000 CARs and NOVs per year, translating into an annual cost of more than $4 million. By automating its business processes using the TriTek solution, the utility has not only improved its working relationship with the city government, but has already realized a five month return on investment, with savings projections of up to 30 percent during the first year of the implementation alone. Ultimately, the savings resulting from early payment discounts, avoiding late payments, and disputing unjustifiable violations is expected to result in annual savings of more than $1.1 million.