March 17 marked the six-month trial operation of the operational integration project initiated by the State Grid Zaozhuang Power Supply Company in the urban area following the successful connection of 18 grid managers with 109,400 households in Zaozhuang New City. The grid comprises 19 dedicated lines, 789 dedicated transformers and 810 public low-voltage substations. Subsequently, an integrated service pattern will be established to address customer service and equipment management within its jurisdiction.

The operational integration is an attempt to strengthen the integration of community grid staff members and power supply grid staff members. It is also an innovative practice to realize service process upgrading and a unified service.

During the pilot phase, the original electric operation and inspection teams, metering teams and high-voltage customer service teams were reorganized to form operational integration teams, ensuring that each grid has both marketing and power distribution personnel. This project fundamentally changes the long-standing tradition of customer service and equipment management handling by different teams and encourages all 825 grid managers of the company to become customer-oriented.

Liu Hui, a 34-year-old staff member of the State Grid Zaozhuang Power Supply Company, previously worked in electric operation. He now serves a total of 7,825 households in eight areas including the Country Garden community and Jintai Guoji communities in Zaozhuang New City. Since taking on the role of grid manager, he has learnt more about electricity fees and prices. He quickly earned their praise after focusing on interpreting the peak-valley time-of-use electricity prices to customers.

"When working on equipment, we don't need to say any words; but when working with customers, every word counts, and using fewer technical terms is better," Liu said. It is a practice he discovered during the transition from a production-oriented employee to an all-around grid manager.