Imagine the impact of a large scale power outage … dysfunctional appliances, jammed elevators, darkness….. Life could get chaotic or even come to a standstill. In today’s world, power has become the oxygen of our working lives. With the increasingly severe weather conditions - hurricanes, thunder-storms, tornadoes, snowstorms, ice storms, landslides, wildfires, and more, how well prepared are the utility companies in supplying power with least interruption? How efficiently are emergency situations being handled by utilities? Can technology play a vital role in enhancing their efficiency?
People are always looking for faster (if not instant!) and reliable solutions to keep pace with their lives. Their expectations from utility companies are higher than ever before. This sense of urgency has grown out of the advancement of technology which has enabled the crunching of time, effort and resources to achieve far greater results. It is not an exaggeration to say that the measure of customer satisfaction has shifted from days to hours/minutes. This puts greater pressure on the utilities to live-up to their customers’ expectations.
Says David Wakeman Manager, Distribution Operating, Ameren UE, – There is a trend in business toward automation for increased productivity, information availability, and information sharing. Utility storm restoration efforts can also benefit from this approach. We have migrated away from manual tracking of resources and crews, to spreadsheets, and now to an automated system. The result of this migration has been greater efficiency in tracking resources and an increased capability in reporting after the fact. We expect to continue to yield benefits from this automation technology when managing large restoration efforts.
Macrosoft Inc., a New Jersey based global software solutions organization, studied the restoration practices of utility companies during emergency situations and measures adopted by them to quickly assemble the available resources, deploy them effectively, manage and track them -- before, during and after the event. During the period Jan-Feb 2006, a survey was conducted involving over 100 storm center leaders from utility companies to understand common best practices and pain-points which can be effectively addressed.
The report highlights the importance of standardizing operations and leveraging technology to enhance efficiencies before, during and after the event.
Some interesting findings that emerged from the survey include:
• Information on regions that are most affected by emergency outages
• Number of personnel deployed during various restoration events
• Use of technology in managing resources and teams during emergencies
In the first step towards looking at the challenges faced by utilities in North America, a study of the historic patterns of occurrences and their reasons would be but logical.
If you are living in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest or Northeast regions, you are more likely to experience frequent power outages. The survey reveals that the outages in these regions occur from once to three times a year and could also go up to five times. From the survey’s point of view, a ‘large-scale emergency outage’ can be understood as an event that affects greater than 5% of a utility's customers for a period exceeding 24 hours. The magnitude of the outage is significantly high to necessitate deployment of a large work force in restoring services.
While people in other regions may take heart from it, Southerners probably have different woes! Though utilities in the Southern regions face fewer outage situations a year, their customers endure longer durations of each outage. A whopping 43% of the utilities polled from here indicated that each of these outages last 5 days or more.
Reflecting on the causes of these outages from a national perspective, 68% are due to ice, thunderstorms and winds.
Resources & Challenges:
The primary challenge utility companies face in major emergency situations is resource management and logistics. Resource management comprises identifying people & equipment requirements, procuring sufficient numbers, managing optimal allocation, and responsibility for the well-being of deployed resources.
The number of people deployed in a restoration effort can range from 500 and go upwards of several thousands during large scale outages. More than half (over 53%) of the utilities surveyed deploy at least 500 people when faced with major crisis situations. Personnel are teamed into smaller groups to manage situations at different locations in a region. With multiple teams operating across the service territory, utilizing all the resources to their optimum becomes increasingly difficult.
Some of the common challenges faced while managing resource teams during a large-scale event include accessing the damage to prioritize resource allocation; determining the quantity, as well as, availability of required resources; tracking resources, who they are, what equipment they have, and where they are located; managing logistics--lodging, meals, staging, supplies, etc.; integrating contract and off-system teams when necessary.
It is not always that utilities have enough manpower resources to handle exigencies. Most often than not, they help one another in sharing their teams. Associations like the EEI and regional mutual assistance organizations are the forerunners in facilitating cooperation between utilities and their common contractors. It is under such circumstances that standardization of processes becomes imperative to achieve greater efficiencies.
With hundreds and possibly thousands of people working in multiple teams at different locations, storm managers are under extreme pressure to exactly know who’s working where and what their resource needs are. Logistics is identified as the prime challenge for utility companies in dealing with emergency restoration situations.
Some critical concerns in handling logistics include preparing meals & lodging facilities, identifying and readying of staging areas, supplying fuel and materials, maintaining communication, coordinating safety/security/ medical treatment.
Utilities set up staging areas to house the restoration teams, their equipment, and materials stores. Lodging is an additional attribute that can be associated with a staging area. While 77% of the companies set up staging areas, 68% of them establish up to 5 staging areas in an event. 20% set up approx. 10 staging areas.
Some of the common challenges with regard to staging areas are availability of space to board & lodge the teams, parking of vehicles, meeting spaces. Unless properly planned and utilized the staging areas could get highly congested hampering the restoration work. Hence, identification and prioritization of staging areas well in advance is a critical task for the utility companies. Additionally, it was noted that securing lodging accommodations for restoration workers present a significant challenge.
Manual vs. Automated Systems:
Despite being in a hi-tech world, a majority of the companies do not use automated systems, but still follow the traditional ways of using spreadsheets, white boards, or forms to track and manage their resources. 55% report that they rely on manual or semi-manual systems. Data from the survey indicates that utilities located in geographic regions where events occur with greater frequencies are more likely to use an automated approach to emergency resource management. This is evident from the fact that 71% of utilities from the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Northeast regions (where events occur with greater frequency, but less duration) rely on a combination of automated and semi-automated systems as compared to 53% of the organizations from the Southern regions (where events occur with less frequency, but greater duration). Utilities that face less frequent, but potentially more severe events are not as well automated as companies that face more frequent, but often less severe events.
Mr. Steve Langley Director, Distribution Construction and Maintenance Orlando Utilities Commission said, “At OUC our emphasis has always been to leverage the power of technology in delivering better and faster services to our customers. Our investments in this direction have been yielding encouraging benefits to our customers, restoration teams and the organization as a whole”.
Utilities which are yet to join the automation bandwagon have reported problems due to manual systems which include concerns about data integrity; complaints about large amounts of data entry; constraint of single-user access; inability to create historical records of event and lack of auditing and reporting features. All these and more impede providing of services in a timely manner and ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction.
While a few companies have in-house automated their systems, they are faced with limitations like lack of on-going technical support, large amounts of data entry and delays/inabilities in timely development of new features, having to frequently switch between manual and automated processes, scalability issues or challenges which can typically be easy work for professional software development organizations.
User-friendliness is a key aspect identified for a successful automated system. When storm center personnel are called in during major outages, it is essential that they quickly understand and leverage the system. Majority of respondents felt that standardizing and automating the processes followed by various utilities will greatly enhance the efficiencies and reduce the cumbersomeness being currently experienced.
Says Jason Singer, Director at Macrosoft Inc, who spearheaded the survey “Rather than just gather and report historic information on occurrences, understand best practices and analyze the findings we have also tried to explore and evolve ways through which we can leverage technology to help utilities in their constant effort to improve efficiencies.” He added, “Some of our innovations are already being used by large utility organizations and have shown impressive results.”
In conclusion, the survey gathers important information on common best practices amongst utilities, highlights the need for standardization of mission critical processes and the impact/importance of leveraging technology in managing restoration efforts aimed at delivering faster, better and reliable services to customers.
About the Author
John Kullmann is Vice President for Macrosoft Inc. a software company serving the utilities, telecom, and other industries. Macrosoft delivers sustained measurable results by utilizing state-of-the-art technologies to automate complex business processes.
Macrosoft has developed Resources on-Demand, an emergency resource management system for utility companies. Resources on-Demand is a fully web-enabled system replacing manual/Excel processes currently used at many storm centers to manage resource requests and track personnel movement during emergency outages.
A copy of the full report and information about the Resources on-Demand’ can be found on Macrosoft web site: www.macrosoftinc.com or by contacting John Kullmann at jkullmann@macrosoftinc.com (973) 889-0500.
People are always looking for faster (if not instant!) and reliable solutions to keep pace with their lives. Their expectations from utility companies are higher than ever before. This sense of urgency has grown out of the advancement of technology which has enabled the crunching of time, effort and resources to achieve far greater results. It is not an exaggeration to say that the measure of customer satisfaction has shifted from days to hours/minutes. This puts greater pressure on the utilities to live-up to their customers’ expectations.
Says David Wakeman Manager, Distribution Operating, Ameren UE, – There is a trend in business toward automation for increased productivity, information availability, and information sharing. Utility storm restoration efforts can also benefit from this approach. We have migrated away from manual tracking of resources and crews, to spreadsheets, and now to an automated system. The result of this migration has been greater efficiency in tracking resources and an increased capability in reporting after the fact. We expect to continue to yield benefits from this automation technology when managing large restoration efforts.
Macrosoft Inc., a New Jersey based global software solutions organization, studied the restoration practices of utility companies during emergency situations and measures adopted by them to quickly assemble the available resources, deploy them effectively, manage and track them -- before, during and after the event. During the period Jan-Feb 2006, a survey was conducted involving over 100 storm center leaders from utility companies to understand common best practices and pain-points which can be effectively addressed.
The report highlights the importance of standardizing operations and leveraging technology to enhance efficiencies before, during and after the event.
Some interesting findings that emerged from the survey include:
• Information on regions that are most affected by emergency outages
• Number of personnel deployed during various restoration events
• Use of technology in managing resources and teams during emergencies
In the first step towards looking at the challenges faced by utilities in North America, a study of the historic patterns of occurrences and their reasons would be but logical.
If you are living in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest or Northeast regions, you are more likely to experience frequent power outages. The survey reveals that the outages in these regions occur from once to three times a year and could also go up to five times. From the survey’s point of view, a ‘large-scale emergency outage’ can be understood as an event that affects greater than 5% of a utility's customers for a period exceeding 24 hours. The magnitude of the outage is significantly high to necessitate deployment of a large work force in restoring services.
While people in other regions may take heart from it, Southerners probably have different woes! Though utilities in the Southern regions face fewer outage situations a year, their customers endure longer durations of each outage. A whopping 43% of the utilities polled from here indicated that each of these outages last 5 days or more.
Reflecting on the causes of these outages from a national perspective, 68% are due to ice, thunderstorms and winds.
Resources & Challenges:
The primary challenge utility companies face in major emergency situations is resource management and logistics. Resource management comprises identifying people & equipment requirements, procuring sufficient numbers, managing optimal allocation, and responsibility for the well-being of deployed resources.
The number of people deployed in a restoration effort can range from 500 and go upwards of several thousands during large scale outages. More than half (over 53%) of the utilities surveyed deploy at least 500 people when faced with major crisis situations. Personnel are teamed into smaller groups to manage situations at different locations in a region. With multiple teams operating across the service territory, utilizing all the resources to their optimum becomes increasingly difficult.
Some of the common challenges faced while managing resource teams during a large-scale event include accessing the damage to prioritize resource allocation; determining the quantity, as well as, availability of required resources; tracking resources, who they are, what equipment they have, and where they are located; managing logistics--lodging, meals, staging, supplies, etc.; integrating contract and off-system teams when necessary.
It is not always that utilities have enough manpower resources to handle exigencies. Most often than not, they help one another in sharing their teams. Associations like the EEI and regional mutual assistance organizations are the forerunners in facilitating cooperation between utilities and their common contractors. It is under such circumstances that standardization of processes becomes imperative to achieve greater efficiencies.
With hundreds and possibly thousands of people working in multiple teams at different locations, storm managers are under extreme pressure to exactly know who’s working where and what their resource needs are. Logistics is identified as the prime challenge for utility companies in dealing with emergency restoration situations.
Some critical concerns in handling logistics include preparing meals & lodging facilities, identifying and readying of staging areas, supplying fuel and materials, maintaining communication, coordinating safety/security/ medical treatment.
Utilities set up staging areas to house the restoration teams, their equipment, and materials stores. Lodging is an additional attribute that can be associated with a staging area. While 77% of the companies set up staging areas, 68% of them establish up to 5 staging areas in an event. 20% set up approx. 10 staging areas.
Some of the common challenges with regard to staging areas are availability of space to board & lodge the teams, parking of vehicles, meeting spaces. Unless properly planned and utilized the staging areas could get highly congested hampering the restoration work. Hence, identification and prioritization of staging areas well in advance is a critical task for the utility companies. Additionally, it was noted that securing lodging accommodations for restoration workers present a significant challenge.
Manual vs. Automated Systems:
Despite being in a hi-tech world, a majority of the companies do not use automated systems, but still follow the traditional ways of using spreadsheets, white boards, or forms to track and manage their resources. 55% report that they rely on manual or semi-manual systems. Data from the survey indicates that utilities located in geographic regions where events occur with greater frequencies are more likely to use an automated approach to emergency resource management. This is evident from the fact that 71% of utilities from the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Northeast regions (where events occur with greater frequency, but less duration) rely on a combination of automated and semi-automated systems as compared to 53% of the organizations from the Southern regions (where events occur with less frequency, but greater duration). Utilities that face less frequent, but potentially more severe events are not as well automated as companies that face more frequent, but often less severe events.
Mr. Steve Langley Director, Distribution Construction and Maintenance Orlando Utilities Commission said, “At OUC our emphasis has always been to leverage the power of technology in delivering better and faster services to our customers. Our investments in this direction have been yielding encouraging benefits to our customers, restoration teams and the organization as a whole”.
Utilities which are yet to join the automation bandwagon have reported problems due to manual systems which include concerns about data integrity; complaints about large amounts of data entry; constraint of single-user access; inability to create historical records of event and lack of auditing and reporting features. All these and more impede providing of services in a timely manner and ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction.
While a few companies have in-house automated their systems, they are faced with limitations like lack of on-going technical support, large amounts of data entry and delays/inabilities in timely development of new features, having to frequently switch between manual and automated processes, scalability issues or challenges which can typically be easy work for professional software development organizations.
User-friendliness is a key aspect identified for a successful automated system. When storm center personnel are called in during major outages, it is essential that they quickly understand and leverage the system. Majority of respondents felt that standardizing and automating the processes followed by various utilities will greatly enhance the efficiencies and reduce the cumbersomeness being currently experienced.
Says Jason Singer, Director at Macrosoft Inc, who spearheaded the survey “Rather than just gather and report historic information on occurrences, understand best practices and analyze the findings we have also tried to explore and evolve ways through which we can leverage technology to help utilities in their constant effort to improve efficiencies.” He added, “Some of our innovations are already being used by large utility organizations and have shown impressive results.”
In conclusion, the survey gathers important information on common best practices amongst utilities, highlights the need for standardization of mission critical processes and the impact/importance of leveraging technology in managing restoration efforts aimed at delivering faster, better and reliable services to customers.
About the Author
John Kullmann is Vice President for Macrosoft Inc. a software company serving the utilities, telecom, and other industries. Macrosoft delivers sustained measurable results by utilizing state-of-the-art technologies to automate complex business processes.
Macrosoft has developed Resources on-Demand, an emergency resource management system for utility companies. Resources on-Demand is a fully web-enabled system replacing manual/Excel processes currently used at many storm centers to manage resource requests and track personnel movement during emergency outages.
A copy of the full report and information about the Resources on-Demand’ can be found on Macrosoft web site: www.macrosoftinc.com or by contacting John Kullmann at jkullmann@macrosoftinc.com (973) 889-0500.
