PA Consulting Group Recognizes North American Utilities for Excellence in Reliability and Customer Service at ReliabilityOne & ServiceOne Awards


Award Recipients Honored for Implementing and Executing Industry-Leading Practices, Strategies and Processes That Breed Success

Con Edison and Florida Power & Light Take Home Top Honors

NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Last night, PA Consulting Group announced the recipients of its annual ReliabilityOne™ and ServiceOne Awards - widely respected as prestigious honors of the electric utility industry - at a reception at 7 World Trade Center in New York, before an audience that included senior management at leading utilities, industry regulators and energy industry experts. PA Consulting Group's ReliabilityOne™ awards recognize electric utilities for providing their customers with the highest levels of reliability in the industry, while the ServiceOne awards recognize companies for providing exceptional service to their customers.

ReliabilityOne Awards

PA Consulting Group recognized five Regional ReliabilityOne™ winners from utilities across the US. The selections were based on overall system wide performance in both outage duration and frequency. PA Consulting awarded its annual National ReliabilityOne™ Excellence Award to one of its regional winners that demonstrated sustained leadership, innovation and achievement in the area of electric reliability.

This year's National ReliabilityOne™ Excellence Award was presented to: Consolidated Edison Company of New York. Con Edison provides electric service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and most of Westchester County, and provides natural gas service in Manhattan, the Bronx, and parts of Queens and Westchester. Con Edison also owns and operates the world's largest district steam system, providing steam service in most of Manhattan.

This year's five Regional ReliabilityOne™ awards recipients are:

  • Northeast - Con Edison
  • Mid-Atlantic - Public Service Electric & Gas Company
  • Midwest - We Energies
  • Plains - Kansas City Power & Light Company
  • West - San Diego Gas & Electric

This year's Overall Outstanding System-Wide Reliability Performance Winner: Con Edison

Con Edison's average customer experienced outages of just 20 minutes for the entire year – this is 85% better than the industry average.

This year's winner for Outstanding Response to a Major Outage Event: Public Service Electric & Gas Company

PSE&G's response to the storm of March 13, 2010, categorized as the worst in the company's history, was extremely well managed and effective. Due to proficient planning and proactive communication, PSE&G's restoration efforts were a success.

The electric industry is facing significant investment needs associated with aging infrastructure coupled with rate pressures related to the current economic slowdown that are testing management's skill and creativity, according to Jeff Lewis, PA Consulting Group's ReliabilityOne™ Program Director. "In the face of these challenges, these organizations have maintained the highest levels of reliability for their customers. Each ReliabilityOne™ award recipient has demonstrated outstanding performance in reliability and restoration and has created a strong organizational culture focused on reliability."

Polaris ServiceOne Awards

PA Consulting Group also recognized those utilities that excel in the area of customer service and care with the presentation of the ServiceOne Awards.

This year's recipient of the ServiceOne Award is Florida Power & Light.

Florida Power & Light - an eight-time award winner - serves 4.5 million customers throughout Florida and is one of the largest rate-regulated utilities in the United States.

This year's ServiceOne Balanced Scorecard Achievement Award recipients are:

  • Contact Center - Florida Power & Light
  • Field Service - Florida Power & Light
  • Meter Reading - DTE Energy
  • Meter Reading - Florida Power & Light
  • Billing - Florida Power & Light
  • Payment - Commonwealth Edison
  • Credit & Collections - San Diego & Gas Electric
  • Revenue Assurance - Xcel Energy

ServiceOne Awards recognize companies for providing exceptional service to their customers as determined by a set of 25 measures of excellence. ServiceOne Balanced Scorecard Achievement Awards recognize companies that provide outstanding performance within selected areas of Customer Service. While PA Consulting Group administers the Polaris ServiceOne program, an advisory committee consisting of members within the Polaris program provides advice regarding its content and criteria.

"Leading customer service organizations achieve success by empowering their employees to put their customer's needs at the front of everything they do," said Gregg Edeson, PA Consulting Group's ServiceOne Program Director. "The companies who have been named ServiceOne award winners for customer service have set the standard in the energy utilities industry by enabling staff with the information, tools and leadership necessary to foster a customer service-oriented culture."

For more information on PA Consulting Group's work in the US energy market, visit www.paconsulting.com/energy.

About PA Consulting Group

PA Consulting Group is a leading management and IT consulting and technology firm. Independent and employee-owned, PA Consulting operates globally in more than 30 countries and transforms the performance of major organizations in both private and public sectors. From initial idea generation and strategy development through to detailed implementation, PA Consulting delivers significant and tangible results. PA Consulting has outstanding technology development capability; a unique breadth of skills from strategy to performance improvement, HR to IT; and strong expertise in communications, defense, energy, financial services, government and public services, healthcare, international development, manufacturing and water. For more information about PA Consulting Group, please visit www.paconsulting.com.

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Carrie Gray
PA Consulting Group
1 212-973-5954
carrie.gray@paconsulting.com

PA Consulting Group
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405 Lexington Avenue, 45th Floor
New York, NY 10174
www.paconsulting.com

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