Customer Success Story

Craighead Electric Cooperative Corporation (CECC) is an electric utility supporting eight counties in rural Northeast Arkansas. CECC initiated a $110 million fiber network project to modernize its power grid and support high-speed broadband services. These services would connect communities in desperate need of reliable connectivity and tap into new opportunities in education, employment, healthcare, and more.

The fiber network project would roll out 5,000 miles of fiber optic cable across rural Arkansas. CECC would leverage the network to link critical electric assets together to ensure safe, reliable, and affordable power distribution. The fiber network would then be leased to CECC’s wholly-owned subsidiary “empower” to deliver Fiber to the Home broadband services.

The Solution

Like most cooperatives, CECC’s fiber expertise was limited so it relied on Irby, which led the co-op to Render. Initially, CECC planned to deploy a traditional project management model that deploys more crews for longer hours to complete the construction as soon as possible. However, CECC realized it could gain enormous efficiencies with Render’s end-to-end digital construction approach with real-time geospatial insights. Render delivers a project environment that organizes network design into manageable tasks and enables fiber builders to make informed decisions about infrastructure and deployments while construction is progressing.

With Render, productivity is off the charts, data integrity is high, and construction costs are down, all without ever touching a piece of paper. Now I can’t imagine trying to implement a large-scale utilities construction project without it.

Jeremiah Sloan Chief Operating Officer at CECC

The Results

Sloan added that Render’s solution also reduces project administration resourcing. He said, “Render’s software has saved my company a lot of money by eliminating the number of people needed to manage a project this size from four people to one.”

Render provided CECC with a rich design and field data that enabled the co-op to construct its network quickly– as an example, outside plant was deployed 84% faster than planned.

“With Render, productivity is off the charts, data integrity is high, and construction costs are down, all without ever touching a piece of paper. I can’t imagine trying to implement a large-scale utility construction project without Render,” Sloan said.

CECC’s goal was to cover 50% of its membership in three years, but it was able to achieve that goal in less than 18 months. With Render, CECC exceeded project expectations, it saved 25% of the forecasted resource spend, ran 55% ahead of production timelines, and completed its build 20% under budget.

“Being able to talk with the Render team and access its experience in this type of construction and perspective on the project itself, the general buy-in has far exceeded our expectations. That is where we see real value,” Sloan added.