Houston Lighting & Power Company (HL&P) filed for a $552 million rate increase to cover costs including ongoing expenses of the South Texas Nuclear Plant. Consumer advocates argued HL&P mismanaged spending. HL&P needed to show its decisions effectively served customers. HL&P examined two customer contact areas: meter reading and billing inquiries. For billing inquiries, the report analyzed three years of call volume, lost calls, and staffing data to determine staffing needs for the upcoming year to maintain at least 95% productivity while handling increasing call volume. The team applied forecasting methods to project call volume, lost calls, and required staffing to meet the 95% productivity goal.

1. MGT 3332 Summer I Team Project
Houston Lighting & Power Company (HL & P) is the largest
investor‑owned electric utility in the Southwest. HL&P is
responsible for generating and distributing electricity
throughout twelve counties surrounding Houston. Even though
it is a private company, its operations are regulated in Texas by
the Public Utility Commission (PUC).
HL&P filed for rate increases of $552 million in November
1990. Consumer advocates charged that HL&P was imprudent in
its spending on the South Texas Nuclear Plant Indeed, the
state's appointed consumer advocate charged that part of the
latest request ($360 million) was to cover the ongoing operating
costs of the STNP. An attorney who represented several Gulf
Coast cities in their petition against the increases questioned
how much of the deferred cost of the STNP should be borne by
ratepayers. Thus, it was critical to HL&P's case that the
company defend and document its prudence in the management
and operations of all existing electric‑generating facilities and
in its providing of electric service. The public's perception of
HL&P's stability and sound judgment in the daily management
of its operations was critical to the outcome of the rate case.
HL&P needed to show that its decisions and operating
procedures were initiated with total consideration given to
effectively serving its customers.
The Customer Relations Group within HL & P was of primary
interest to HL&P's case preparation since it was responsible for
all company activities that primarily involved customer
contact. Customer Relations Group employees served as
company liaisons to handle diverse customer inquiries and
requests in order to establish, monitor and support continuous
and reliable electric service.

2. There were two functions within key divisions of the Customer
Relations Group that were of interest to management. These
were : meter reading by the Field Activities Division, and
customer billing inquiries by the Customer Contact Division.
TELEPHONE CONTACT INQUIRIES
The Customer Contact Division handled all customer
inquiries by telephone. It had the largest staff of any
division in Customer Relations. The Houston District of
Customer Contact handled approximately 300,000 calls per
month and in 1989 faced a record high call volume due to the
rate hearings. There were concerns that the operators would not
be as productive as an increased number of calls inundated
the system and the number of operators continued to decrease.
The productivity of the area had been affected and management
felt that all aspects of the telephone service process should be
closely examined. Staffing plan studies were undertaken to aid
in determining the number of operators that should be
available per month and to alter staffing plans to increase
productivity.
Based on Customer Contact monthly productivity data from
1985 through 1987, the number of calls accepted by the
operators met the existing productivity standard of 90%.
However, management did not encourage the productivity levels
of the operators to fall below 95%. Using historical
productivity data to investigate changes in the productivity
patterns, three values were observed:
* the number of persons calling into the system per month
(CALL VOLUME)
* the number of persons unable to talk with an operator

3. (LOST CALLS)
* the number of operators available per month to take calls
(STAFFING)
Houston Lighting & Power, Co. wanted to apply
operations management techniques to two direct customer
contact areas of the company in order to effectively serve its
customers. The company was obviously concerned with
customer perception as it attempted to satisfy the PUC that its
need for the 1988 rate increase was caused by growth that
would "benefit all of [its] customers".
Period
Volume Handled
Lost Calls
Staff
Period
Volume Handled
Lost Calls
Staff
1
228204
1131
119
19
269849
8582
131
2
235195
5587
117
20
293410

4. 3455
142
3
246118
2711
118
21
290310
3987
118
4
228310
2415
118
22
298021
4036
97
5
240003
3969
118
23
256541
2245
107
6
248124
8394
131
24
227727
2304
105
7
299402

5. 10370
132
25
284123
10000
105
8
320670
3414
128
26
286118
9765
107
9
290796
7163
128
27
286535
2800
105
10
323757
1369
127
28
264257
1004
96
11
237100
2207
123
29
251973

6. 7653
73
12
220566
3000
115
30
249193
8857
85
13
252896
759
124
31
302928
11727
78
14
231324
731
123
32
336895
19121
78
15
225270
1380
121
33
339904
46710
82
16
238596

7. 1618
118
34
308410
44493
95
17
222162
1245
118
35
261026
40083
97
18
246370
1221
132
36
229846
19390
100
INSTRUCTIONS:
Your paper should be 4-6 pages long (including the Excel
inserts, but not including the title page, appendix and work
cited page). Submit your doc or docx file to the Team
Assignment Turnitin link. You must follow the format
requirements established in the Style Guide. All material taken
from other sources must be cited in text and at the end of the
paper. You will be penalized for errors in citation, quotation, or
paraphrasing. If your paper contains blatant plagiarism, you will
receive a zero for the assignment.
Required Elements/Sections

8. 1. Title page: The title page must contain the names of all team
members contributing to the contents of the paper, not just to
BB discussions
2. Introduction: In this section, provide a brief description of
the problem(s) as you see it/them
3. Operations: In this section, provide a high-level description
of the method or methods you employed to analyze the
forecasting problem(s). Be sure to indicate why you believe that
the method(s) you determined to use is/are the best for volume
of calls, lost calls and/or staff numbers based on data from the
previous 3 years.
4. Excel Results: This section must include discussion on all
Excel runs you determined to be relevant to the problem(s) you
defined. All forecast model results must be embedded in this
document. You can put the solution you determined within the
body of the report with all others in an Appendix clearly
marked. Do not submit it as a separate file. Furthermore,
although the rest of the document must be in portrait
orientation, you may embed Excel results in landscape.
5. Conclusions: Based upon your solution(s), will they be able
to achieve productivity of 95% or higher throughout the next
year? What level of staffing will this require?
6. Work Cited
7. Appendices: These should be designated by letter and titled
clearly.
HL&P Forecast
Group 2
Jeffrey McGuire, Michael Dunlap, Johnnie Porter & Cynthia
Vasquez

9. 6/16/2015
[Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is
typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Type
the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a
short summary of the contents of the document.]
1.0 Title Page
Table of Contents
1.0 Title Page 0
2.0 Introduction 2
3.0 Operations 2
4.0 Excel Results 2
5.0 Conclusions 3
6.0 Works Cited 3

10. 2.0 Introduction
3.0 Operations
4.0 Excel Results

11. 5.0 Conclusions
6.0 Works Cited
There are no sources in the current document.