| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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MEA Smart Life is creative and innovative as it is the first service innovation in Thailand which, through the mobile device, links the 3.5 million of the customers’ houses and buildings which are on the map with the electricity service in bill payment and handling of the notification in electricity failure. The development of the innovation is based on the feedback from the “Voice of Customer” in the MEA Service areas which focuses on modernization, speediness and accessibility to information at all time in line with the urban lifestyle taking into account the changing direction of technology and the government policy. MEA Smart Life is applicable to both iOS and Android systems. Which is an extension of the existing valuable resources of MEA.
As MEA Smart Life link the information on the position of electricity meters and buildings collected in the Geographic Information System(GIS) with the information of the customers collected in the ERP system, the users can check by themselves the monthly electricity fee and can notify the electricity failure using the meter number or the current location. The innovation can reduce the damage from the blackout and increase reliability of the MEA distribution system.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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Among the 4 groups of MEA customers namely, housing, business, industry, government and non-profit organizations, MEA Smart Life is intended specifically to respond to the demand of housing group which constitutes 80 percent of the total customers.
MEA Smart Life can help make a better the quality of life of all groups of customers no matter what their favorites are, for example, the group which likes travelling, those who prefer family life, the group who enjoys in-house activities, environmentalists and the low-income group. With MEA Smart Life, all customers are able to pay the electricity bills easily and can plan for the electricity use each month. Moreover, they can use other MEA services such as summertime air-conditioner cleaning application. The patients who need to use electricity all the time for their health care device such as a ventilator or dialysis machine can make a registration with MEA for immediate solution to the power failure incident. MEA will take care of all notifications and complaints which have been sent through the MEA Smart Life with transparency and traceability.
To promote the implementation of MEA Smart Life, MEA has carried out the following:
1. In MEA, the principal responsible units are the Marketing and Customers Relations Unit together with the Service Units of the 18 MEA Districts and ICT unit. The implementation consists of creating involvement process, organizing meetings to introduce the objectives and benefits to be obtained by the stakeholders, and preparing a project on volunteer lecturers from all units of MEA to publicize MEA Smart Life to customers at 18 MEA District offices
2. For external implementation, MEA has publicized MEA Smart Life to the payment agents such as EasyBill, 2C2P, 7-Eleven, Tesco Lotus, Counter Service and government and private agencies such as police stations, hospitals and fire stations.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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In the development of MEA Smart Life, the short- term and long- term strategies for the development of the service innovation are as follows:
1) At the first stage, the initial development has been outsourced to the outsiders with the plan that the MEA staff will be able to undertake the system development in a long run resulting in a human resource development system.
2) Using a cross-function working procedure by which the knowledge of each unit will be integrated to achieve the same target.
3) Publicizing the new service innovation to the public and introducing motivation for implementation
4) Keeping the on-going global technological trend which aims at a better operation and a trend of the new generation particularly the urban people
5) Following-up and evaluating the implementation and customer satisfaction regularly in order to use the feedback for the revision, improvement and development of the system to be more efficient and to meet the demand and expectation of the customers and the general public.
The major resources involved in the development of MEA Smart Life are non-financial resources which include human resources, databases and main working systems of MEA as follows:
1) Human resource from the units which are stakeholders comprising the Marketing and Customers Relations Department, District Affairs Department, MEA District Offices, Information Technology Development Department and the Application System Development Department. Representatives of these units will cooperate in the discussion on the problems encountered in the former system, giving suggestion to solve such problems and making proposal on the new design to meet the demand of the users. Moreover, cooperation has been received from the Corporate Communication Department in the public relations of the MEA Smart Life in order to increase the implementation continuously and evaluate customer satisfaction regularly.
2) The databases and the working systems which have been integrated in the development of MEA Smart Life are GIS, ERP and FFM as follows:
2.1)The GIS database of the ratio 1:1,000 is a map with great detail and accuracy in position. The database consists of layers of information such as road network, landmark and building blocks.
2.2)Database of over 3.5 million electricity meters used for locating the house of the electricity users and the location of the informant of the electricity problem.
2.3)Database of history of the electricity users from the ERP system used for identifying the name, address, units of electricity use, electricity value of the meter number registered in the Application.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The stakeholders of MEA Smart Life are MEA’s customers of all groups. In designing and implementing of the system, the customers’ requirements collected from the “Voice of Customer” (VOC), satisfaction survey and the study of the customers’ behavior have been taken into account. Moreover, the demand and expectation of the general public, regulators, trade partners and allies as well as MEA staff have also been considered.
The development of MEA Smart Life has started in 2012 as an attempt to improve the MEA service with the help of the existing GIS system. The working procedures in the development are as follows:
1) Study the internal and external factors concerning the MEA’s vision, mission and strategies which focus on the excellent service having innovation service for customers-oriented proactive service. Study the trend of technology which is about to transform the world into a complete digital society and study the present pattern of everyday life which is dependent on mobile device.
2) Study and collect information and all problems from the VOC system
3) Study the possibility in integrating the existing working systems such as the GIS, ERP, Field Force Management, and Service and payment system of the agencies
4) Study the technology in linking the information of several systems through the web service
5) Study of the expansion of the basic service systems such as the internet and the mobile device systems
After the completion of the study, the development phases have been considered comprising the extension of the GIS system which has been implemented in several units of MEA and the link with the ERP system which collects information of the electricity users such as the number of the electricity meters and the units used in each billing duration.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Since the launch of MEA Smart Life Application and the invitation to users to download the system, the innovation has gradually received greater interest and satisfaction as witnessed from the number of download of approximately 520,000 times during 2013 to the end of 2016. Apart from an additional communication channel, the business transaction through the Call Center and at MEA offices has been reduced. The output of MEA after the existence of the innovation and those with the contribution of MEA Smart Life in terms of the reduction of business transaction and expenses are as follows:
1) Reduction of the notifications concerning the failure to receive the electricity bill and the enquiries about the fee through the Call Center.
During 1 August 2013 - December 2016, the accumulating number of enquiries via MEA Smart Life is over 5.58 million.
2) Reduction of the number of responses to the enquiries regarding electricity fee through the automatic response system (IVR)
The number of responses of 304,086 in 2015 is comparatively lower than the one in 2014 which is 394,438 or 22.9 percent less than the previous year.
3. Reduction of the payment items made at 18 MEA Districts Offices
During 1 August 2013 - December 2016, the accumulating number of remittance through MEA Smart Life is approximately 129,612 items. With the increasing number of payment items through MEA Smart Life every month, the investment in human resource to handle enquiry to be received through the Call Center and payment at the MEA headquarters and district offices can be reduced.
4. Reduction of the other expenses of the electricity users concerning 6 damage factors comprising wage for employees, loss of compensation or profits, overtime, deteriorated raw materials or products, expenses in the restart of the production process and damaged tool or equipment. The above mentioned expenses will be saved as a result of the decrease in the number of the power failure incidents or the reduced time used in solving the power failure problem.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The main obstacles encountered during the development process and the solution of the problems is as follows:
1) Problems with the function in creating the bar code or QR code
Initially, the existing equipment of MEA could read only the bar code. As there was reflection on the screen of the smart device, the bar code was not legible enough, so testing of the reader is required to find a more appropriate reader. The bar code size has been adjusted to be shorter.
2) Technological compatibility
The link with the technology of the payment agents has been an obstacle in the implementation of MEA Smart Life as different agents have different equipment in dealing with payment. Some agents, for example, can receive payment only by bar code whereas the others can receive payment by both the bar code and QR code causing confusion to customers. To solve this problem, meetings have been held by MEA with the agents to explain the detailed function of MEA Smart Life. The Graphic User Interface (GUI) has been improved for better understanding of the customers.
3) Design of system on the smart device
As there is a limitation on the screen dimension, long instruction is not possible. It is necessary to prepare an instruction which is clear and concise with sequence of priority.
4) As the operation of the smart device is by means of finger touch without instruction, the users’ experience with the smart device is necessary. It is essential for the design to give impression of ease for continual use.
5) The design of alert or warning should be applicable for all cases either a success, failure or an error so that the users know the status of their use.
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