Background

Providence Water serves more than 77,000 homes across the city, working hard to fulfill their mission of providing reliable, high-quality, safe, clean drinking water for all residents.

Since 2012, they’ve been working with an expert panel to reduce lead at the tap, using a four-pronged approach: corrosion control, unidrectional flushing, water main rehabilitation, and extensive public education and outreach. In 2017, they put a plan in place to oer homeowners 0% interest loans to replace the private side of their lead service line, launching a “Lead Free is the Way to Be” campaign.

The Challenge

With this new campaign in place, Providence needed to find a reliable way to manage the data of their LSLR replacement, ensure all necessary sample kits were delivered to residents and back to the lab for testing, and educate homeowners on the project. Originally, they worked to build in-house software to fulfill these needs.

It soon became clear, however, that this DIY solution lacked the reliability and functionality necessary to run the program.

They needed a purpose-built solution that could hold up in the long term and provide them the flexibility needed to effectively execute their programs.

The Tactics

Providence turned to 120Water’s flexible solution, including purpose-built digital water software that could handle all the ins and outs of their program and eliminate the risk of a DIY solution. Combining the software with 120Water’s digital sample kits was a no-brainer, and took the program to the next level.

Tactics included:

• 120Water handled all logistics of fulfilling sample kits, automating the fulfillment of more than 3,000 kits over the course of 18 months.

• In addition to the clear instructions on the easy-to-use kits, every sample box contained a flyer insert educating the homeowner on the program.

• The software allows Providence’s team to track and control all concurrently running programs in one central location, including the Lead Service Line sampling, Lead and Copper Rule sampling, and a Customer Request program.

• All associated data is unified and presented in simple, easy-to-view dashboards.

Results

With 3,400 sample kits sent across various programs, 120Water streamlined the sampling process across all Providence Water programs. The software has provided a flexible, reliable solution that saves team bandwidth and ensures that Providence is achieving compliance and keeping residents safe today, and in the future.