MROI Mro Software

MRO Software (Nasdaq: MROI), the leading provider of asset and service management solutions, today announced that its customer, The Onondaga County Water Authority (OCWA) swept the regional, state and national Management Innovation Awards by the American Public Works Association (APWA). This awards "sweep" was based on an asset management integration project that's providing OCWA's constituents better water, costs savings, and higher levels of service. The award-winning "Conquest" project was enabled by the use of the Maximo Asset and Service Management solution The Management Innovative Awards recognizes organizations that implement creative ideas, processes or systems that improve the way public works serve its customers and improve the environment. OCWA, central New York's largest water utility, won the successive contests thanks to its ability to completely transform the way it does business by integrating three best-of-breed financial, billing and asset management software applications into one, easy-to-use Web-based system. OCWA's string of successes culminated with the award of the national Management Innovation "Project of the Year" award bestowed upon the utility this past Fall. The Conquest project was implemented by Stearns & Wheler, LLC, a consultancy of environmental engineers and scientists, and Strategic Computer Solutions, Inc. of Syracuse, NY. The scope of OCWA's asset management challenge was significant. The utility provides fresh water to 340,000 consumers in six counties. This includes maintaining and improving more than 1,650 miles of water mains, 84,000 meters, 9,500 hydrants, and 17,500 valves, not to mention the management of its 120 employees, equipment and fleets. To this end, Conquest integrates Maximo with Lawson Financials, Human Resources and Banner Advantage Customer Management applications. It consolidates all of OCWA's operations into a single IT system, including maintenance, equipment, meter reading, billing, work orders, purchasing, labor and human resources. It enables the organization to easily maintain employee records in and link the records to work orders and project costs in Maximo. Among its many benefits, the system has enabled OCWA to: -- improve the speed and quality of customer service -- improve purchasing of goods and services, -- improve worker efficiency, -- automate the tracking of materials management and inventory, -- better estimate new work and track actual project costs -- improve billing data analysis. OCWA also integrated Integraph's GeoMedia WebMap geographic information system (GIS) technology to provide a geographic framework for improved work planning and maintenance of its far-flung assets. When completely deployed, the integrated GIS capabilities will help track the location and condition of water mains, valves, hydrants, meters and storage facilities. OWCA considered implementing a single enterprise software suite from SAP to tackle the problem, but chose to integrate best-of-breed applications instead due to the high cost, complexity and implementation time required to customize the necessary SAP applications, according to Michael Hooker, OWCA's executive director. "We wanted to the solution to be as 'out-of-the-box' as possible, meaning we needed the software to work well as designed without a big custom coding effort," he said. "In addition, software upgrades are a huge hassle with ERP systems. By comparison, we were able to upgrade from Maximo 5.1 to 5.2 without a hitch in half a day." "We are pleased to support OCWA as part of its innovative approach to providing a clean and reliable water supply," said Johan Arts, vice president, industry marketing, MRO Software. "OCWA's approach of integrating the best solutions for their specific needs, paid off with a more efficient and flexible system at a lower cost. We are working with more than 100 customers in the water/wastewater market, as well as, customers across all industries to provide similar, superior asset and service management systems." About OCWA The Onondaga County Water Authority is a public benefit corporation created in 1951 (and began operating in 1955) in accordance with the Public Authorities Law of the State of New York. The Authority was created to finance, construct, operate and maintain a water supply and distribution system for the benefit of the residents in and around Onondaga County. Currently, OCWA is one of the 125 largest publicly owned water suppliers in the United States. About MRO Software MRO Software is the leading provider of asset and service management solutions. Maximo Enterprise Suite, the Company's flagship solution, is delivered on a web-architected platform and increases productivity, optimizes asset performance, and service levels, reduces costs and enables asset-related sourcing and procurement across the entire spectrum of strategic assets. The Company's asset management solutions allow customers to manage the complete life cycle of strategic assets including: planning, procurement, deployment, tracking, maintenance and retirement. Using MRO Software's solutions, customers improve production reliability, labor efficiency, material optimization, software license compliance, lease management, warranty and service management across the asset base. MRO Software (Nasdaq: MROI) is a global company based in Bedford, Mass., with approximately 900 employees and more than 300,000 end-users. The Company markets its products through a direct sales organization in combination with a network of international distributors. MRO Software has sales offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Additional information on MRO Software can be found at http://www.mro.com. Maximo(R) is a registered trademark, and MRO Software(TM) is a trademark, of MRO Software, Inc.