DEW21’s Journey to Enhanced Billing and Communication Efficiency with UIPath

Our Client

Dortmunder Energie- und Wasserversorgung GmbH (DEW21), supplies electricity, natural gas, heat, and water to over 600,000 residents and businesses in Dortmund, Germany. The company currently generates around 285 GWh of electricity from renewable sources and aims to be climate-neutral by 2035. To become a sustainable provider, the client plans to invest over 100 million euros in climate-friendly heat supply solutions. This investment is part of a broader strategy that includes pursuing digital transformation and automation initiatives.

A Growing Need to Make Operations More Sustainable

As part of its internal strategy, DEW21 aimed to become a sustainable life provider with a particular emphasis on improving its billing and communication processes. The daily challenges of managing hundreds or even thousands of system clarification cases related to new registrations, meter readings, billing, and cancellations made the process less efficient, transparent, and sustainable to meet the evolving needs of its customers.

The company, therefore, wanted to streamline its billing and communication process to meet objectives that would help them become more:

• Sustainable: Implement practices to conserve resources and minimize environmental impact.
• Customer Centric: Provide tailored digital products and services that cater to individual customer needs.
• Value-Driven: Develop digital solutions to deliver significant value to customers and improve satisfaction.
• Efficient: Digitize and automate the majority of routine billing and communication processes to improve operational efficiency and transparency.
• Cost Efficient: Achieve cost savings for long-term viability and competitiveness.

Automation of Subprocesses Turned the Tables for the Client

To address these challenges, DEW21 partnered with rku.it to develop a central toolbox under the project name “Klara” (Case Resolution Automation Robot). The toolbox is developed to automate approximately 50 subprocesses related to market communication and billing. These subprocesses included name verification during cancellations, identification of metering points, plausibility checks of meter readings, and the request for missing data.

The modular design of the toolbox simplifies the identification of cases within the SAP system and allows for the quick integration of additional case resolution processes in just a few weeks. As a result, the toolbox has freed up significant time for DEW21’s employees, allowing them to concentrate on more strategic tasks.

How our solution transformed DEW21’s operations

The implementation of bots developed by rku.it on the UiPath Platform has significantly enhanced DEW21's billing and communication processes. It has delivered several key benefits to the client some of which include:

• Increased Efficiency: Bots now process hundreds of thousands of standard cases, enabling DEW21’s staff to redirect their focus in managing special cases and providing customer support.
• Workload Management: Automation has allowed DEW21 to handle growing workloads without increasing staff numbers, helping to mitigate the challenges posed by a potential skills shortage.
• Automation of Routine Tasks: A dedicated bot, known as the dispatcher, actively monitors processes within the IT system, identifies cases, and assigns them to the appropriate processes in the toolbox. Currently, 40% of cases involving customer name verification and supply point assignments are automated, significantly speeding up processing times.
• Enhanced Employee Engagement: By freeing up time from repetitive tasks, employees can engage in more strategic initiatives, fostering a more motivated and productive workforce.
• Continuous Improvement: The introduction of automation has led to a culture of innovation within DEW21, with departments actively suggesting additional processes for automation.

Through these benefits, DEW21 has not only optimized its billing and communication operations but also laid the groundwork for a more sustainable and customer-focused future.

To know more about how to automate repetitive, rule-based tasks in business processes, get in touch with UIPath now.