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Yorkshire Water provides water and
waste services to around 4.7 million people and 140,000
businesses in Yorkshire.
In 2003, the company had a turnover
of £573 million and made profits of £115 million. It
is currently ranked second in Ofwat’s Overall performance
Assessment which compares the levels of service offered
by the UK’s top 10 water and sewerage companies, up
from a ranking of 10th in 1996/7.
The company supplies around 1.24
billion litres of drinking water each day – the equivalent
of a glass of water for every person on the planet –
and runs an extensive network of sewers and waste water
treatment works.
Yorkshire Water is the main UK subsidiary
of US water and waste services group Kelda, which employs
over 3,000 people.
Yorkshire Water’s IT department comprises
250 professionals on two sites in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
The department has more than 100 projects in its 2004
business plan with an estimated spend of £18 million.
It has adopted MS Project 2003 as
its ‘enterprise’ project management tool and plans to
have all projects using the package by next month. The
software has replaced an older version of MS Project
as well as the PMW project management package.
Yorkshire Water’s IT department has
three ‘infrastructure’ teams in charge of day-to-day
systems operations, and five development teams. The
department is also supported by three central governance
teams: finance, IT architecture, and the IT Programme
Office which is responsible for overall project management.
All projects have a nominated project
manager. Within the company’s regulated environment,
formal project approval is required at a number of levels
before work can begin. In addition, formal technical
and project plan QA reviews are required by IT Programme
Office before projects are finally authorised.
Project audits and milestone reviews
are undertaken throughout the life of projects, with
both technical and business post-project reviews undertaken.
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