East Coast Utility Purchases HPC Utility Financials Accelerator

We're very pleased to announce that another utility has purchased HPC America's Utility Financials Accelerator. HPC UFA integrates with SAP® solutions to help utility companies address today's more stringent regulatory reporting standards, and provides management with increased audit transparency and rate case support. In 2010, HPC UFA achieved SAP certification as powered by the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform.

Part of our team will be spending the summer in the Mid Atlantic to implement UFA for our customer. The project's goals include the following:

• Allocate costs charged to FERC accounts to transmission and distribution lines of business and state jurisdictions


• Create a controlled report distribution process with less reliance on Microsoft Excel


• Increase flexibility to use accepted cost allocation models for FERC accounts in SAP


• Provide enhanced regulatory drill-down functionality in native SAP ECC 6.0

HPC UFA is already in production at Trans Bay Cable, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, and Tacoma Power.

Phased SAP Implementation Generates Big Bang Results at Sonoma County

Last November, we announced that Sonoma County Water Agency had selected HPC America to implement SAP ECC 6.0. The project has been intense but smooth; in fact, the Water Agency completed blueprinting, realization, and go-live of its SAP license in just eight months.

This initial phase focused on enhancing critical business processes, including streamlined time card entry, cost and overhead allocation to projects and funds, and a new order management system that improves managerial visibility into business operations.

The project was successful for many reasons: the Water Agency had a truly dedicated project manager; key staff recognized the long-term benefits SAP could deliver; and our phased approach built foundational user acceptance. As a result, the implementation stayed on schedule and budget, and the Water Agency now enjoys functionality its county does not provide. It also caused stakeholders to think about their business differently and authorize the next phase of SAP implementation.

Overall, Sonoma County Water Agency is a real testament to how a smaller utility with modest resources can implement SAP successfully while still meeting the strict requirements of its municipality and contending with decades-old legacy systems. Stay tuned for a full case study later this year.