Providing wastewater and storm water utility services for Washington County, Oregon - as well as for portions of the bordering Clackamas and Multnomah Counties - Clean Water Services has approximately 500,000 customers through 12 member cities, with 800 miles of sanitary sewers collecting and treating a minimum of 64 million gallons of wastewater a day. The District has an overall operating budget of $35 million and a capital improvement program averaging $49 million annually. The Conveyance System Department is one of the larger operating groups in the District, with an average annual operating budget of $10 million. The Department is divided between two service divisions - Engineering and Field Operations - and is responsible for the management, design, construction oversight, and maintenance of the District's conveyance systems. Development Services provides plan review, permitting, inspection and record mapping of new sanitary sewer, storm water quality and quantity facilities, and erosion control on projects built by private developers. Capital Projects, meanwhile, designs and administers approximately $8 million in annual construction contracts for portions of the sewer system built using District funding.

In 2002, Clean Water Services' Development team was looking to replace its outdated legacy permitting software, a hand-programmed system that wasn't keeping up with the department's permitting needs. Management set out to find a system that would suit the organization's unique requirements.

"Whereas most permitting systems are primarily geared towards building permits or other types of activities like that, we're a little bit different in that we issue site development permits and connection permits to allow people to connect their sanitary sewer," says Nora Curtis, conveyance department director for Clean Water Services. "We knew we were going to have to have something that could be somewhat customized. We looked at three different systems, and went and interviewed with people who have them locally here in the area." After examining all of the alternatives, Clean Water selected CSDC Systems' enterprise software solution AMANDA as the best fit for the job.

Multiple Uses of AMANDA

Clean Water's initial use of AMANDA was in its Development Services section. CSDC introduced that section's specialized processes into AMANDA, allowing Clean Water to replace its outdated permitting system. From the beginning, AMANDA was also used for workflow tracking, keeping track of plans submitted for review and following them through the organization.

"We were able to use AMANDA to basically allow a number of people to track their processes and make sure that all of the pieces are satisfied before the site development or connection permit could be issued," Curtis says. "That was really an advantage for us because prior to that if someone came to pick up a permit it was this mad dash to file cabinets and to check with all the people who had a role in approving the project."

While Development Services was Clean Water's primary concern upon implementing AMANDA, the group found another unique use for the system almost immediately, this time within its Capital department. There, AMANDA was used for another type of tracking, allowing the Capital group to follow the status of any of its ongoing sewer-system building projects from beginning to end. This was a new role within the department; prior to AMANDA, it was done only in an ad hoc, person-by-person fashion.

"At the start of a Capital project, one of the first things that the project manager does now is put in the estimated project schedule, the big milestone dates. When do we anticipate construction to start? When do we anticipate going to bid? There are four or five key dates," says Curtis. "It also allows us, in one place, to see the overall status of things like easements, which before meant multiple pieces of paper, multiple files, and knowledge that only resided with a single project manager."

Improving How They do Business

Since it was first implemented, AMANDA has helped Clean Water change the way it does business in several supplementary ways as well. Most important among them is within the area of customer service. A more user-friendly website fueled by AMANDA can now provide ongoing information to the public on individual applications, making Clean Water itself more transparent and keeping its customers informed along the way.

"One of the things we were constantly battling was this perception that either plans were being delayed or people weren't getting things turned around quickly," says Curtis. "What we are able to do now is produce a series of status reports, produced daily, and post them out on our website…. That's cut down on people asking where their plans are at, and it's also cut down on engineers blaming delays to their clients on Clean Water Services when in reality they hadn't even submitted the plans or had submitted them the day before after letting them sit in their office for three weeks."

Future Uses of AMANDA

Curtis and her team are looking at several options in terms of expanding the use of AMANDA within the Clean Water Services group. While they did test remote accessibility early on in the organization's use of the software solution, at the time equipment issues made them choose not to go ahead with the program. Now, though, they have promised their on-site inspectors that they will take a second look at a system that will allow remote access to the AMANDA database. "We have told the inspectors we will go back and look at it again," Curtis says.

Another area Curtis sees as a potential place for future growth is through the possible introduction of web permitting to Clean Water's capabilities. This would allow the organization to expand its online presence and to possibly open remote satellite offices outside of its main facilities. "We also might be able to implement some kind of charge system, so that frequent customers could basically obtain a permit online or submit an application online where they would not have to travel all the way to our office physically," Curtis says.

The overall goal, Curtis adds, is to continue to supply Clean Water's services in the most efficient way possible. As the organization evolves, AMANDA will help the team continue to do that.