Time, that is, for the Holistically Integrated Enterprise. It’s been a longtime coming, but I think it has finally arrived. For decades utilities have viewed the various components, systems, platforms and networks as stand-alone, isolated islands of technology and applications that shared little in common. And, although that was perhaps an appropriate view 20+ years ago when the various automation platforms bore little or no resemblance to one another, it is certainly out of step with the standardized, interoperable and extensively interconnected automation/IT solutions at our disposal today. No, you can’t do it all at once, but you do need to envision it all – holistically across the enterprise. Anything less is going to cost you, big time.

But it isn’t just the technology that has changed. A drastically changed regulatory environment coupled with sea change responses to reliability, security, compliance, sustainability and various other challenges have necessitated a comprehensively choreographed and closely coordinated change in how we can – and indeed must – address and overcome the challenges utilities face in the 21st century.

A lot of the people I talk to these days – users and suppliers alike – are quick to tell me that Smart Grid is the thing that is going to fix the morass of tangled products, platforms and technologies that has been incrementally assembled over the past half century. Everyone seems to be jumping on the SGI (Smart Grid Initiatives) bandwagon like desert dwellers flocking to an oasis. Problem is, I think that a lot of them have the cart before the camel. Here’s what I mean…

Back in the day (i.e., before we all got ‘Wintelled’), automation platforms not only didn’t talk to each other – they hated each other. Okay, not really hated, but there were certainly no such things as widely accepted protocol standards, substation LANs (local area networks) or COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware and software. Everything was pretty much a custom effort as evidenced by routine budget overruns and badly blown delivery dates. (Remember, I’m only talking historically here…) Because of those limitations, projects were treated – arguably appropriately – on a case-by-case basis. Every project was a new design, and every old project was a pain in the butt to support, but it was all painfully consistent with the times. (Believe me, those of us who were around for all the fun still remember!)

And then along came standardization: Common information models, off-the-shelf hardware and shrink-wrapped software. Everything talks to everything; wired or wirelessly. Problems solved! Well, um, not quite. It seems that although the suppliers eventually delivered those standardized, compatible and interoperable solutions – just as users had always wanted – the project planning, budgeting, designs and implementation process remained stuck in the traditions of the 1970s. (I really wanted to say, Stuck on Stupid, the phrase that Lt. General Russel L. Honoré memorialized here in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, but I certainly wouldn’t want to offend anyone who might not appreciate the humor in that analogy.)

Suffice to say that the automation project methodology employed at most (no, not all… I said most) utilities remains the same old sequential model. That is, each year the utility targets and budgets a specific dimension of their automation infrastructure (GIS, SCADA, OMS, etc.) with the knowledge and intention that the rest of the task will be addressed in future years; a process I’ve referred to in earlier editorials as “compartmentalized budgeting.”

To me, this is sort of like deciding to cook a meal but not settling on what the meal is going to be before you head out to the grocery store. Once you get there you do your best to buy good stuff at reasonable prices, but then when you get back home you discover that liver and chocolate syrup don’t really go together very well – even though both ingredients were good brands on sale at very good prices.

So here we are – some 20-30 years later – with the world’s most eclectic potluck dinner when it comes to automation/IT platforms. Smaller utilities may have it in smaller portions because their appetites and resources are modest. Oh, and big utilities? Well, they have a veritable smorgasbord of potluck for any occasion. Okay, enough with the food analogies… what I’m really trying to say is this:

1. Attention Utilities: You got your wish; the systems all talk now, and better yet, they actually understand each other! Let’s face it, you can’t stop Baby-boomers from retiring, and you surely cannot replace your entire (now rapidly deteriorating) infrastructure overnight, so do what you CAN do by using the myriad automation tools readily available to mitigate the problems you can’t fix any other way. It might not be free, but it is available.


2. SGI is NOT going to be a panacea for anything, much less everything. In fact, it’s going to be a huge and very expensive undertaking that a lot of you reading this probably won’t even be around to see completed.


3. And by the way, where is all of this investment going to come from? Historically, it’s been pretty doggone hard to get even relatively modest automation/IT projects justified, even those with a reasonably attractive ROI. But more comprehensive projects can have better economies of scale and also tend to get better support from the top when properly conceived.


4. Yes, you’re starting anew, but let’s learn from what has come before. Specifically, we need to start taking the longer – holistic – view of critical automation and infrastructure investments.


5. And finally – like it or not – a new 30-50 year life cycle starts every time you procure an asset and/or a system to monitor and control that asset, so let’s include the automation on the front end now instead of making your successors scramble to find out how much life is left the next time around. (Yeah, I realize that there’s a certain poetic just to that, but let’s not go there.)

Behind the Byline

Mike Marullo has been active in the automation, controls and instrumentation field for more than 35 years and is a widely published author of numerous technical articles, industry directories and market research reports. An independent consultant since 1984, he is co-founder and Director of Research & Consulting for InfoNetrix LLC, a New Orleans-based market inteligence firm focused on Utility Automation and IT markets. Inquiries or comments about this column may be directed to Mike at MAM@InfoNetrix.com.

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