20150818AVU to Staff 91.doc

AVISTA CORPORATION
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/14/2015
CASE NO.: AVU-E-15-05/AVU-G-15-01 WITNESS: Jim Kensok/Karen Schuh
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Larry La Bolle
TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Fed Regulation
REQUEST NO.: Staff - 091 TELEPHONE: [phone]

REQUEST:

Page 21 of Mr. Kensok’s testimony states: “AFM COTS Migration – 2015: $0; 2016: $0; 2017: $15,608,000. The project replaces the Company’s obsolete, custom Facilities Management system (Project Atlas) with a commercial, off-the-shelf application.” Please describe the reasoning, benefits, and risks associated with the AFM COTS Migration project being deferred until 2017.

RESPONSE:
The current implementation schedule for the subject application system reflects Avista’s balancing of the priorities, risks and resource demands among many large information technology projects across the Company. A benefit of moving a project out in time is that it frees up resources to complete other projects that may have a greater priority or more rigid implementation constraints. As noted in the request, this can also increase business risk for the project to be implemented later. Accordingly, for the subject project, the Company has taken steps to ensure we have the number of knowledgeable support personnel required to maintain and operate the current system, and that the timing of implementation does not hinder the work of integrating these new systems with the many other business applications required to support our ongoing operations.

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