Case Study: City of Seattle achieves 90% AHT reduction and $3,000/day savings with NICE Systems' NEVA automation

NEVA The City of Seattle Streamlines Utility Workflows with Hybrid Automation

The City of Seattle Utilities (Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light) manages hundreds of thousands of water, sewer, garbage and electric accounts and faced large backlogs caused by repetitive, manual workflows, siloed information, high error rates and complicated training. Critical processes affected included manual meter readings, ownership transfers and customer rebates for leaks, all of which drove long processing times and operational risk.

Seattle implemented NICE robotic process automation (NEVA Studio, NEVA Assist and unattended robots), building four automations (hybrid attended–unattended and fully unattended) to handle rebate calculations, ownership changes and manual meter data. Results included a 90% reduction in average handling time for leak adjustments (30 to 5 minutes) — roughly $3,000 saved per day — about 107 hours of labor saved, fewer invalid data-entry errors, backlogs relieved and staff freed for higher‑value work; the city plans to expand automation across more back‑office and frontline roles.

City of Seattle

Robert Cromwell

Seattle City Light Executive Sponsor