The City of Wilmington Reduces IT Support Time by 60%

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The City of Wilmington provides services for over 90,000 households in one of the fastest growing areas in North Carolina. 

Prior to implementing Datastream 7i, the City had three disconnected asset management systems distributed across departments and divisions. These separate systems contributed to a multitude of problems, including high volume of IT support cases, low equipment uptime, and an inefficient use of resources. Datastream 7i resolves these problems and provides the City with a tool for improved customer service and the ability to make better decisions based on data. 

Reduced IT Support Effort
Prior to implementing Datastream 7i, two IT analysts spent their time supporting three systems. Now they support a single asset management system, reducing time spent supporting the system by 60% and saving $5000 per year per system on tech support subscriptions. And the Web-based solution lowered the initial deployment cost and incidents of IT support. What used to take eight days to deploy to 200 workstations is now less than one hour since the web-architected zero-footprint application does not need to be deployed on each user's workstation.

Increased Equipment Uptime
Datastream 7i provides the City a preventive and predictive maintenance program for thousands of distributed assets. The City can now be proactive, resulting in increased equipment uptime and maximizing the impact of taxpayer dollars.

Improved Efficiency
The flexible configuration of Datastream 7i enables the City to support diverse work processes for different departments and divisions.

For example, the Wilmington Waste Water division focused on corrective and preventive maintenance work as well as inspection processes for collection systems, pump stations and plant assets. The Parks and Urban Services department centered on recurring public services like tree trimming and building maintenance.

Superior Customer Service
Streamlined processes result in improved customer service. Work orders are now automatically routed based on a user's authorization, eliminating the paperwork previously needed for approval and scheduling. From submitting a work order to approval, the process would frequently take at least eight hours—now it takes less than two hours. The City has since set an attainable goal of approving work orders within 30 minutes.

Make Better Decisions
The City's management uses the robust data management, analytics and reporting capabilities of Datastream 7i to gain unprecedented visibility across all departments and operations. This facilitates better-informed decisions that improve efficiency, reduce costs and maximize asset use.

The City now reports more accurately using key performance indicators such as:

• Booked labor hours and manpower against work orders and projects
• Forecasting and budget variances
• Total cost of maintenance (labor and materials)
• Inventory usage and cost

Overall, the City of Wilmington has made great strides toward reducing IT support, improving efficiency and customer service. And they now have the information and decision support capabilities they need at their fingertips to make better decisions.