Arcos

Consumers Energy, Michigan’s second largest electric and natural gas utility, began using ARCOS in 2006. We placed over 1,600 field employees in the system in October and went live in November. By March 2007, as Consumers Energy was moving from the implementation phase to “getting over the hump,” it was apparent that we needed to form a group of ARCOS Subject Matter Experts within the company that could discuss ARCOS ideas and issues as they arose. Thus, the Consumers Energy ARCOS Users Group was formed. Our mission statement is: Disseminate New Information and Program Changes and Provide a Forum of Discussion for ARCOS Users.

The group meets about once every two months and has grown from its original member count of 12 employees to 18, representing users from field leaders to dispatchers. Because our group has members from a wide variety of job classifications, discussions and agenda items usually move along
quite well during meetings. The wide array of employee classifications also gives the group a great perspective from all sides of the topics being discussed.

Having employees meeting face-to-face in one place, representing headquarters from all over the state of Michigan, is a great asset. The open dialog from the Users Group allows us to share thoughts and ideas, keeping all of the service centers on the same page. And, since ARCOS is still new to Consumers Energy, the Users Group has been very helpful in guiding the growth of ARCOS within the company.

Lori Meyers, a member of the Consumers Energy Users Group and Supervisor for Meter Services in Grand Rapids, states, “One of the things that I see the Users Group does is allow us to talk about topics and really share our best practices.” Meyers also added, “The Users Group has also helped
many of us remember some of the things we may have forgotten during the original training process and take that back to the business group each of us represents.”

For example, a few users were confused with the way ARCOS charged field employees during
callouts. The charging confusion stemmed from callouts not being resubmitted by users when a callout was not filled after running through the list the first time. The Users Group members
discussed this and were able to take the information back to any concerned employees and clarify the situation.

Individual Users Group members have discussed items such as ARCOS job aids and even topics that are not directly related to ARCOS, but have been developed specifically for an area that may be of help. The group has done a lot of problem-solving on topics ranging from finding ways to get field employees to release themselves from a callout, to discussions about the exclusivity feature located within the roster list administration page within List Maintenance.

The topics of our meetings vary, but since our last meeting focused on training, we invited Roger Whitacre and Dani Hays from ARCOS, Inc. to give presentations. Roger gave a great refresher course on the Create Callout screen while Dani presented methods of using SIREN notification.

Tom Youngs, a System Control Supervisor in Grand Rapids, noted the ARCOS Users Group meetings have been a great thing for Consumers Energy. “When I got back from one of my recent meetings, someone called me with an ARCOS issue. Coincidently, it was something we had just covered in our Users Group meetings and I was able to help the employee.”

Since ARCOS is still very new to Consumers Energy, we are still openly looking into adding and changing features within ARCOS during our Users Group meetings. The Users Group allows for excellent discussion of any needs for adding new features or simply developing a workaround for the needs of Users.

If the Users Group finds the need to add a feature, Consumers Energy ARCOS Administrator, Craig Schray, brings the request to the attention of the ARCOS, Inc. Steering Committee. The Steering Committee makes the final approval for any and all changes to ARCOS and helps resolve any issues brought forth by the Users Group.

Through open discussion, the Users Group really helps with the communication process by making sure ARCOS users are all on the same page, by not varying in the way callouts are done and procedures are handled, even though we are spread throughout the state of Michigan.

Consumers Energy is the principal subsidiary of Jackson-based CMS Energy Corporation. Consumers
operates 12 coal-fired and two oil-fired generating plants, 13 hydroelectric plants, a pumped storage generating plant, and several combustion turbine plants.

Consumers Energy has been operating since 1886 and currently employs over 8,300 people. Currently, Consumers Energy uses ARCOS only for its electric transmission and distribution side but is considering utilizing ARCOS for its gas side as well.

 

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