A state-of-the-art Customer Information System (CIS) that will replace the twenty-year-old billing system is in the process of being implemented by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) company.

The US$2.8M system will improve the quality of service to GPL’s customers and responsiveness to their request, ensure data accuracy and integrity and integration of cash receipting.

The project is funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) under the Unserved Areas Electrification Programme (UAEP) as part of the company’s loss reduction investment programme.

The contract for such a project was signed in March between GPL and the Canadian Company Advanced Utility Systems, a subsidiary of Harris Computers of Canada.

A GPL release stated that the key objective of the CIS is to ensure that the solutions implemented are flexible enough to respond to the inevitable changes in the internal and external environment.

It further added that the CIS will also provide solutions that will improve the quality of GPL’s customer service and allow quality Information Technology (IT) systems to support GPL’s business well into the future.

In addition, the new system will allow the commercial staff at all eight locations countrywide to have up-to-date information on all GPL’s customers and allow new payments to be immediately credited to customer’s accounts. The project is scheduled to come into effect in April 2010.