Pacific Gas and Electric Company 

N8-3D Solutions is currently offering a wide variety of services to one of the largest utility companies in the world.  This account is indicative of the vast array of services that N8-3D Solutions has to offer. 

Currently, the Company is providing solutions in the following arenas for PG&E: Help Desk, curriculum development, software development, consulting, training and roving consulting/training.

  Help Desk: N8-3D Solutions is currently staffing the help desk at PG&E for the JET (Job Estimating Tools) and MIP (Mapping Improvement Project). N8-3D Solutions has structured the entire help desk from the call center setup and operation all the way through escalation systems, call tracking and customer satisfaction feedback. The Company is currently supplying PG&E not only with best of class AutoCAD troubleshooting but also covering the Sherpa and Image Edit third party applications that are utilized in both the JET and MIP projects. N8-3D Solutions is supporting a user base of over 1500 people and is averaging approximately 100 calls a day. From PG&E’s own internal numbers N8-3D Solutions has obtained a 94% satisfaction performance rating. 


  Curriculum Development: N8-3D Solutions has already provided consultation on the development of a five-day, 40-hour, 800-page courseware taught to over 900 people for the JET project as an AutoCAD SME (Subject Matter Expert). The Company has also developed from the ground up a two-day, 16-hour "Large Projects" Class taught to over 160 people. During the course of  development N8-3D Solutions laid out the scope of the class based on user need and input. Then N8-3D Solutions devised the rough outline for the courseware filling in all objectives, key terms, exercises, appendices and content, not to mention the actual drawings used for the course. Due to the enormous success of the first two courses, the Company has been asked to fully develop four additional courses: 

JET 2 for Electric - This is a two-day, 16-hour update course that will bring a user base of over 650 people up to speed on AutoCAD 2000 as well as introduce some new tools from the Sherpa third party application.

JET 2 for GAS - This will be a five-day, 40-hour course that will also teach much of the same content as JET 2 for Electric but will include the addition of training on the conversion of a DOS-based, non-Y2K compliant application called GASCEP. The attendance for this class is expected to reach over 300 people.

MIP Electronic - MIP is going to be a two-day, 16-hour class taught to over 90 users of various CAD/drafting tools who are converting to a MAP 2000/GIS environment. This particular curriculum is different in the fact that separate modules are being produced for changes in the approach to drafting with AutoCAD dependent upon which drafting system the user originated with.

MIP Manual – This course will be broken out into two five-day, 40-hour classes in which instruction will take a two step approach. This particular user base has over 350 people who have never done anything more than manual drafting. The objective is to first teach them basic CAD usage and techniques and them bring them back for a second week of training a short time later to introduce them to the electronic version of their current job procedures using AutoCAD Map 2000.

AutoCAD R14 Productivity – This is a one-day, eight-hour seminar with handouts documenting and covering large projects, productivity and and general Q and A session with users. A total of 50 users will be taught in four locations. The objective is to disseminate the information given in a large project class and present shortcuts and "Tips and Tricks" that will speed up the process of everyday work.

The capabilities of the curriculum development coupled with training has provided PG&E a means to recover over $1 million dollars back into the company based on the California Job Retraining and Reclassification Act.


  Software Development – In addition to the curriculum development, N8-3D Solutions is simultaneously developing the software that is being taught. N8-3D Solutions’ associates are at the very heart of a group that is tasked with the development of four different software applications that must be tested, delivered and trained before the end of 1999. Richard Charmack, the lead developer on the project, is one of the leading LISP programmers in the United States. He has been known to write functions in LISP to perform a task an individual is discussing, program during the discussion, and then deliver a finished product by the end of the conversation. This innate ability has helped the entire PG&E development project stay in scope and on time. 


  Consulting – N8-3D Solutions is proud to have been named the liaison between Autodesk and PG&E. The Company also acts in the capacity of a SME for PG&E on curriculum and software development. All of the staff at N8-3D Solutions have demonstrated their expertise in not just
AutoCAD but also in many other aspects of the AutoCAD program such as support, development, implementation, printing/plotting and roll out. 

  Training – N8-3D Solutions was originally hired to fulfill an existing training contract initiated with a VAR. N8-3D Solutions was able to provide over 65% of the resources needed to perform 22 weeks of classes running five ten-person classes simultaneously. Based solely on the level of expertise, professionalism and user feedback, N8-3D Solutions" staff was retained to become involved in all other aspects of the services listed for PG&E while other VARs and Knowledgeworks were not asked to return. N8-3D Solutions’ staff is certified in AutoCAD with the lowest test score for the ACE (AutoCAD Certified Expert) of 96.  As well, all trainers at N8-3D Solutions are vertically focused and qualified. All associates of N8-3D Solutions have been carefully selected and hold vertical certifications in ALL Autodesk products. 

In conjunction with the courseware development and software development, N8-3D Solutions is also supplying the trainers to train the over 1400 people on four new software titles by the end of 1999. N8-3D Solutions is planning to conduct eight classrooms with ten students per class.

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