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PFES Elevates Gas Utility with Quality Assurance and Effective Scheduling

PFES helps Midwest gas utility develop and implement a quality assurance program, improve capital project scheduling and stakeholder reporting, and increase customer satisfaction.

Our client, one of the nation’s largest natural gas utilities, was in the first two years of a ten-year gas main replacement program that also included service replacement, meter replacement, and all public and private restoration efforts.

Key Challenges

Customer dissatisfaction and organizational disorder
Unfortunately, customer complaints had increased significantly under the replacement program. In addition, the program was experiencing construction overruns, noncompliance to the project schedules, and lack of quality assurance program development and dedicated personnel.

PFES Solution

Assess and implement a quality assurance plan
Acknowledging their lack of experience managing a large capital gas replacement program, the utility turned to PFES to evaluate the program’s construction quality assurance plan and provide mitigation strategies. PFES deployed an experienced team of quality assurance experts to assess the program’s construction quality process, customer complaint process, and scheduling efforts.

Outcome

PFES provided recommendations for the development of a quality assurance program, common customer communication database, and enhanced scheduling and stakeholder reporting. PFES also deployed a construction quality assurance inspection team to the field.

PFES resources integrated seamlessly into the client’s project organization and made a positive impact on increased contractor performance and minimized customer complaints. PFES also helped establish greater visibility into project status and enhanced real-time reporting to enable upper management to make key decisions faster.