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Case study · Rancho California Water District

A water utility runs on assets, not just ledgers.

Rancho California Water District serves one of Southern California's fastest-growing regions. Replacing its aging enterprise systems meant financials, HR, and asset management moving at once, on a platform that had to talk to the utility systems already in place.

The brief

For a utility, enterprise asset management is not a module. It is the operating record of the infrastructure.

Rancho California Water District delivers water and wastewater service across a fast-growing part of Southern California. Its modernization replaced aging enterprise systems with a fully integrated cloud platform: Infor CloudSuite spanning Financial Management, Human Capital Management, and Enterprise Asset Management.

A three-module implementation at a utility is not three projects running in parallel. Asset management touches work orders, which touch inventory, which touches procurement, which touches the general ledger. Getting the sequence wrong means rebuilding configuration later at full cost.

Avèro provided end-to-end project management, beginning with support for contract negotiations and alignment of stakeholders around a comprehensive implementation roadmap. The team worked across departments to establish governance structures, clarify roles and responsibilities, and coordinate planning with both the software vendor and the system integrator.

As rollout progressed, Avèro led execution across data migration planning, interface design, user acceptance testing coordination, and training strategy, including the integrations with Infor Public Sector, OnBase EDMS, and Cayenta CIS that the District depends on.

The general ledger is downstream of the work order. Design the asset side first and the finance side reconciles itself.
Abhijit Verekar · Founder & CEO · Avèro Advisors
What the work produced

Three modules, three integrations, one program.

Contract negotiation through user acceptance testing, with the utility's existing systems treated as fixed constraints rather than as problems to solve later.

Pre-implementation

Contract negotiation support

Advisory through contract negotiation, so commercial terms reflected the District's delivery expectations before work began.

Pre-implementation

Governance structure

Governance established with clear roles and responsibilities across District departments, the software vendor, and the system integrator.

Delivery

Data migration planning

Migration planning across legacy sources, sequenced so financial, HR, and asset data landed in a usable state rather than a merely complete one.

Delivery

Interface design

Interface design for the integrations the District runs on, including Infor Public Sector, OnBase EDMS, and Cayenta CIS.

Delivery

UAT coordination

User acceptance testing coordinated as a District-owned activity, so the people who operate the system validated it before go-live.

Delivery

Training strategy

A training approach built for the operational reality of a utility, where field and office staff use very different parts of the same platform.

What it delivered

One integrated platform, three functions.

Financial reporting streamlined

Financial management consolidated onto a modern cloud platform, replacing the aging environment the District had outgrown.

Asset lifecycle visibility

Enterprise Asset Management brought infrastructure lifecycle into the same system of record as the financial and HR data around it.

Responsive HR services

Human Capital Management delivered alongside the rest, so workforce processes moved onto the same platform rather than staying behind.

Why it matters

Someone has to own scope when the vendor and the integrator disagree.

In a multi-module implementation there are always moments where the software vendor, the system integrator, and the client each have a defensible reading of what was promised. A project manager working only for the District can adjudicate those moments on the District's behalf. That role does not exist unless the client hires it.

End-to-end project management Contract negotiation through go-live · Scope, schedule, risk, communication

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