The first step to continuous improvement

Improving operations through process mapping

Safety, reliability and customer service that is second to none is important for all businesses. For a natural gas supplier, however, these elements become absolutely critical.

Liberty Utilities is a regulated water, natural gas and electric transmission and distribution utility, delivering responsive and reliable essential services to nearly 800,000 customers in 13 states across the United States and New Brunswick, Canada.

In the highly competitive energy marketplace, Liberty Utilities took a practical approach, including a decision to implement ProcedureFlow, to improve their operations, make a positive change in the business and position Liberty Utilities for future success.

Our adoption and daily use of ProcedureFlow has not only given us a better view of our current business processes, it has also served to illuminate the areas in which we can improve.

Jon Wilson Manager, Information Technology

Centralizing process documentation

With ProcedureFlow, Liberty Utilities quickly mapped their “as is” processes, allowing them to:

• Document monthly financial billing and reporting, gas supply, information technology and regulatory processes to protect against unexpected employee leaves and absences.
• Quickly see the areas where there are gaps and opportunities for improvement, with a view to assessing which process improvement opportunities should be prioritized.
• Create a centralized process library where all the organization’s process documentation is held and can be easily accessed by employees no matter where they are located.

ProcedureFlow is part of the tool kit we use to map our 'as is' processes, in support of our continuous improvement initiatives. It has very much become part of our culture.

Jon Wilson Manager, Information Technology

In addition to mapping “as is” processes, Liberty Utilities leverages ProcedureFlow to ensure:

• Employees are quickly trained and cross-trained, spending less time in the classroom and more time “learning by doing”, improving both quality and consistency.
• Process documentation can be created 40% faster than with traditional publishing tools.
• New employees are trained faster and more efficiently, allowing senior employees to delegate routine tasks to junior employees and focus on higher value work.
• The business is quickly able to respond to change(s) in the marketplace and employees immediately receive notification of updates in a timely and visual manner.

By leveraging ProcedureFlow, Liberty Utilities has given their employees one single source of truth and has laid the first stone in their journey toward continuous improvement. Liberty Utilities can also now respond more quickly and efficiently to changes in the marketplace, a critical element to Liberty Utilities’s continued success in the highly competitive energy industry.