DEWA Organises 2nd Annual Process Optimization Conference
The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) organised the second Annual Process Optimization Conference 2012 at The Address Downtown Dubai, to discuss ways to improve processes to strengthen customer engagement and to boost workplace productivity. The Conference is in line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to promote sustainable development in the Emirate of Dubai.
The Conference was attended by HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, Ahmed Butti Al Muhairabi, Secretary General of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy , Nasser Lootah, Executive Vice President for Generation at DEWA, Yousef Jebril, Executive Vice President of Power and Water Planning at DEWA, Waleed Salman, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at DEWA, Dr. Yousef Al Akraf, Executive Vice President - Business Support at DEWA , Abdullah Al Hajri - Executive Vice President -Customer Services at DEWA, decision makers, experts and senior representatives of Governmental departments and the private sector.
The event hosted three eminent international speakers: Connie Moore, Principal Analyst at Forrester; Steve Towers, Co-Founder and Consultant at BP Group; and Nick Thrustle, CIO and Director of IT at Benenden Healthcare Society.
Highlighting innovative methods and measures to strengthen its competitiveness, DEWA put the spotlight on best practices to save time and effort and to enhance efficiency and reliability of service delivered to customers, through the Conference.
“This conference supports the vision and directive of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who is continually looking to promote Dubai as the global hub for trade, business and tourism, and create a sustainable future for Dubai. At DEWA, we are constantly working to improve the way we work based on innovation and enhancement. We have focused on creativity and innovation in a separate conference held last month and now today we focus on process optimization,” said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA.
“The conference supports our efforts, with a range of international expert speakers from around the world with considerable knowledge, experience and insights on process optimization,” added Al Tayer. “I look forward to new insights on a subject that is very important for DEWA, as we have focused on process optimization since 2009, creating a dedicated team with the tools and techniques to improve processes within our organization. The team has undergone training to ‘Lean Black- and Green-Belt’ certification, to ensure that DEWA’s business re-engineering efforts are benchmarked to world-class standards. This has resulted in real benefits and advances that we can share with you all today,” he said.
“We continually review our key performance indicators and benchmark them with world-class practices; this has resulted in significant advances for DEWA’s customers, with considerable reduction in waiting time for our customers based on findings from our in-house surveys. Our service delivery of electricity and water has been enhanced to ensure the best possible outcome for our customers. At DEWA, focusing on optimizing our customer service processes has made significant advances for our customers, with considerable reductions in waiting times for our customers based on findings from our in-house surveys. Our original target of 15 minutes waiting time for frontline services was achieved and then reduced to 10 minutes. This target has also been achieved and now has been reduced to 8 minutes. For bill payments, the original target was 10 minutes, which was met and then reduced to 7 minutes. We also met this and have now reduced waiting times to five minutes for our customers. Also, we have been focusing on reducing time of bill payment which was reduced to five minutes and then to three minutes, and now it has reached one and a half minute thanks to applying new cutting-edge and advanced technologies,” he added.
“DEWA has also achieved results that rival and even beat benchmarks for the private sector, surpassing 10 of the best European companies. DEWA’s network losses were measured at 3.49% compared to 6 to 7% recorded by the top ten US and European utilities. In addition DEWA reported 5.77 minutes lost per customer per year compared to 16.4 minutes recorded by counterparts,” he said.
“ DEWA conserves the fuel needed to generate electricity and water for resources sustainability for generations to come. Currently DEWA is implementing the international programme SAP for Enterprise Resource Planning, which aims to measure, integrate and automate all DEWA’s operations to deliver top-quality services for our customers, employees and partners. These efforts culminated in by the UAE being ranked 7th in the world in terms of the ease of getting electricity services according to World Bank’s Doing Business 2013 report,” added Al Tayer.
“At DEWA, the improvements are backed up by constant review and monitoring of our standards to enable us to improve performance at every turn. By using Process Optimization, we can avoid unnecessary costs by improving services, which benefits our customers. This conference is in line with DEWA’s strategy and methodology based on exchanging expertise and knowledge with governmental departments and private sector,” concluded Al Tayer.
Dr. Yousef Al Akraf, Executive Vice President - Business Support at DEWA said: “DEWA’s strategy is based on the continuous development of its operations, and the exchange of experiences and best practices with the national and international departments and organizations, and this the second session of the annual conference is a continuation of this trend which we hope to continue participation of our strategic departments and our organizations for best partnership and cooperation.
Emirate: Dubai
Date: Dec 13, 2012
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