The Business Payoff

One of the ultimate goals of the Magellan Program was to help CPS Energy automate as many of its day-to-day processes as possible, and the smartphones it deployed are now contributing to this objective in a number of ways, according to Barron.

Perhaps most significantly, employees' heightened ability to communicate within the company's various ranks has contributed to a staff reduction of roughly 10 percent since 2005, just before the launch of the Magellan Program. Barron says about 150 jobs have been eliminated to date due to automation efforts. And CPS is currently growing revenues by roughly 8 percent per year, according to Barron.

"The Magellan Program, through the use of smartphones and other technology, has or will empower all employees, no matter what work they perform, to become part of the greater company's 'though network'," Barron says. "Each person is now like a node in our network."

The company is also seeing significant gains in supply chain efficiency related to Magellan and the smartphone deployment, he says. For instance, smartphones help speed up the purchase order process, because in the past a specific person or group of people needed to be onsite to approve orders. Now the approvers can be practically anywhere with cellular coverage. The company's supply chain buyers can also visit warehouses to work with the people who actually order parts, leading to faster order times, and more proactive supply chain management overall, Barron says. In just one year, the time it takes to close purchasing and procurement deals decreased by more than 65 percent. Also, inventory levels were reduced by more than $8 million dollars since the Magellan Program began.

Additionally, Both employee and customer satisfaction levels are up, Barron says, due to the fact that staffers now have more access to corporate systems and information and feel closer to the business. Because CPS can now resolve more customer issues with fewer processes, they've reduced the time it takes to complete most service calls, leading to happier customers. In fact, the company received the highest score in J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Gas Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Survey.

"One of the biggest metrics of satisfaction and trust in IT is the amount of money that the business invests in it," Barron says. "If you look at our budget in 2006, we had about an $18 million O&M (operations and maintenance) budget and a $15 million capital budget. Next year, we'll have a $37 million O&M and $30 million capital budget. That in and of itself should demonstrate that satisfaction and trust in IT to provide value has greatly increased over the last couple of years and the Magellan Program has contributed significantly to that."