Got two new junior auditors starting next month and I'm trying to put together a training plan for Cleveland Illuminating's commercial schedules. These tariffs changed so much in the past few years with the deregulation mess. Anyone have a good approach for teaching the GS-1 through GS-3 rate structures? I'm worried about overwhelming them but they need to understand the demand ratchets and how the distribution charges layer on top of the generation rates. Any war stories or tips would be appreciated.
Training new hires on Cleveland illuminating rate schedules - help needed
Frank, I feel your pain on the Ohio deregulation complexity. When I train new people on Duquesne Light here in Pittsburgh, I start with a single month bill and walk through every line item. Don't try to explain all the rate schedules at once. Pick one simple GS-1 customer and show them how each charge is calculated step by step. Once they can audit one bill correctly, then you can start showing variations. The key is building confidence early.
I always have my trainees calculate everything by hand first before using software. Sounds old fashioned but they really need to understand the math behind demand billing. Had a new hire last year who was just plugging numbers into our audit software without understanding what a coincident peak was. When the client asked questions, she was lost. Make them work through a summer peak month manually and they'll never forget how demand charges work.
Great advice from Bonnie. I do something similar with MLGW trainees here in Memphis. First week is all hand calculations. I give them a stack of old bills and make them verify every charge using the tariff sheets. Takes forever but they really learn the fundamentals. Also recommend having them call the utility business office with basic questions - gets them comfortable talking to utility reps and understanding how billing departments actually work.
Thanks everyone, these are exactly the kinds of tips I was looking for. I like the idea of starting with hand calculations. Going to set up a mock client with 12 months of FirstEnergy bills and have them work through the entire year. Should give them a good foundation before we move to the software tools. Appreciate the help!
One more thing Frank - make sure they understand how to read interval data early on. So many audits nowadays require 15-minute analysis and if they can't spot load factor issues or power quality problems in the interval data, they'll miss big savings opportunities. I've seen junior auditors focus only on rate schedule optimization and completely miss obvious demand management opportunities worth thousands per month.