Keeping the Lights On: How Improved IT Service Management (ITSM) Helps Bonneville Power Administration Better Serve Customers

Case Story

Context

A Federal Energy Supplier Ensures Clean Energy is Available to the Pacific Northwest

Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a self-funded, non-profit federal marketing administration within the U.S. Department of Energy, provides reliable, affordable, carbon-free hydropower to communities across the Pacific Northwest.

BPA sells electrical power to commercial utilities from 31 federal dams, one non-federal nuclear plant, and several small non-federal power plants. Ultimately, the clean energy delivered by BPA provides 28% of the electric power in the Pacific Northwest, serving 3 million people across 300,000 square miles. The service area spans multiple states, including Idaho, Oregon, Washington, western Montana and parts of eastern Montana, California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. 

The Challenge

Modernized IT Operations Enable the Mission

Reliable, clean power is critical to the region’s economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. However, BPA’s legacy IT support model was too decentralized to support the modern, responsive IT environment that its employees needed to fulfill this mission.

Cognosante led the implementation of a complete IT service management (ITSM) process and philosophy transformation while providing Tier 1 and 2 IT service desk and deskside support to BPA employees through a centralized service desk. 

Improved monthly Incident Resolution and Request Fulfillment
7,000 workstation refreshes and upgrades over 3 years
Agency modernization goals met with our support

Our Innovative Solution

IT Service Management and Performance Metrics Empower Service Delivery

The Cognosante team introduced best practices in IT service management to better align BPA’s IT services with its mission. Specifically, we:

  • Introduced standard practices based on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and ISO 20000 including incident management, request fulfillment, knowledge management, advanced reporting and metrics, IT print administration, IT communications, and end user self-help services.
  • Elevated BPA to a modern PC environment by upgrading workstations and leveraging surge capabilities to provide effective temporary workforces for complex projects.
  • Migrated all IT support processes, including incident, knowledge, and configuration management, from outdated in-house software to a modern IT Service Management solution.
  • Overhauled the reporting and metrics systems to provide better insight into operational performance. 

Our Tangible Results

Improved Service, Response Time, and System Availability Means Happier Customers

  • BPA advanced its modernization goals through their new centralized service desk model, grounded in industry best practices like ITIL and ITSM.
  • Improved system availability helped BPA employees improve customer service and response time; staying nimble during the COVID pandemic.
  • BPA improved monthly Incident Resolution and Request fulfillment from approximately 80% to 90% and ITSM software improvements, including a new customer portal reduced call volume by 30%—doubling self-help resolution.
  • BPA employees now have the latest hardware and operating systems, thanks to more than 7,000 workstation refreshes and upgrades over a 3-year period. 

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