Using technology to optimize investment and human capital to improve financial, operational, and customer service performance and resiliency

City of Atlanta Smart Utility Program—People, Process, Policy, and Platform

The City of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management (DWM) is creating a Smart Utility Program as one of the key strategic initiatives to achieve their Utility of the Future vision. While it is usually attractive to focus on the technology aspects, DWM’s Smart Utility Program is centered around people, policy, and processes.

As a first step, the department will focus on performance management, business process optimization, and use case prioritization before investing resources into new project implementation. As DWM’s trusted advisor for over 20 years, our team has partnered with the department in their smart utility efforts. We collaborated to develop the Smart Utility Strategic Plan, describing the framework, steps, and projects to be implemented under this pioneer program. Our team will assist DWM in developing their performance management framework, business process framework, and an integrated smart utility architecture.

The benefits of this transformative program will be realized in many of the utility's business capabilities—service delivery, workforce development enhancements, infrastructure reliability, operational efficiency, financial resiliency, regulatory compliance, and safety and security.