Interview: Chris Royce of Anglian Water on the Implementation of the Copperleaf Product Suite

Anglian Water is an innovative company whose mission is “to put water at the heart of a whole new way of living” and raise awareness about how essential water is to life, to the environment, and to a vibrant and growing economy. The company is the largest water and water recycling company in England and Wales—and Copperleaf’s first client in this sector!

We recently completed the implementation of Copperleaf C55 and it was one of the most challenging, yet rewarding projects any of us have ever worked on. I sat down to catch up with Chris Royce, our primary stakeholder and project champion, to get his thoughts on how everything went. As Head of Strategic Investment Management for Anglian Water, Chris was involved with the project from before it was a project! As the implementation draws to a close, I’d like to share some of the highlights:

What was the most challenging part of the project?

For Copperleaf, this was a new country (UK) and a new sector (water). We could see the potential of the C55 system and the benefits it would provide, and in reality many utility assets are very similar and the principles of risk-based decision making are similar. Ultimately, we now have a fantastic solution that combines the power and capability of the core C55 solution with the maturity of the UK water sector. It’s really exciting to see. This continuous planning and management capability really puts us in a new space.

What was the most rewarding part?

For the procurement process, we put together our set of requirements, including many ambitious areas of functionality that we were going to need to meet future challenges. We were unsure if any suppliers could achieve them all, but we knew what best practice could look like—and the Copperleaf team committed to deliver them all. It’s been hugely rewarding to see the vision become reality throughout the project.

Is there anything unique that AW is doing with C55 – something that hasn’t been done before?

There are lots of things. In particular, we started capturing cost data in 2005 and have been carrying out cost estimation-linked investment planning since 2007, using over 1,800 cost models built up from that data. As such, it was very important for our new solution to be able to build on that library of knowledge. Working closely with our Cost Estimating Team, Copperleaf built out a new Copperleaf Cost module, integrated with the rest of C55, to execute our cost models within the planning process.

Have there been any other added benefits?

At the start of the process, we undertook a comprehensive process mapping of ‘as is’ and ‘to be’. This highlighted a number of pinch points in our process, which Copperleaf was able to ‘systemise’ as part of the implementation.

How has the C55 solution been received in the wider business?

We’ve had a great response from end users. As one user put it during a training session: “I’ve only been using C55 10 minutes and it’s already a significant improvement over our previous system!”

Any anecdotes from the project?

During evaluation, we held a number of reference calls and I joked that Copperleaf must have some magic stardust they put on their users’ keyboards, because I had never heard such positive references about an IT provider. I have to say they were honest! I believe it’s Copperleaf’s focus on the customer experience that made the difference.

What made the project a success?

It may be a cliché, but the joint Anglian Water and Copperleaf delivery team deserves a large amount of credit. We started from a strong position; we had a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve due to our maturity, and the right product to deliver it. But ultimately, the drive and dedication of the team is what has carried us to a successful go-live. Anglian Water is very strong in alliancing and is recognised as an industry leader in this regard, so I wanted to carry this through into this project. And on the Copperleaf side, just the simple thing of having one dedicated project manager for the duration of the project made all the difference in having a collaborative and innovative delivery approach.

To learn more about our work with Anglian Water, click here.