EET&D : How can a utility manager know if they are getting a quality inspection system?

Singh : As a substation manager who is researching and considering the implementation of an on-line substation inspection system and asset manager for his utility operation, you need to know what differentiates an adequate system from a superior one. The following tips will guide and help in the selection of an on-line substation maintenance system for your utility.

First and foremost, any quality substation asset management system must be inspector friendly. The system must allow the users to operate in a logical and intuitive fashion; otherwise most of its benefits will go unrealized.

Evans : As a duly nominated and accredited D.O.U.G. (Dumb Old Utility Guy) I can recall the many trade magazine articles and discussions of a few years ago which promoted R.C.M. (Reliability Centered Maintenance) and C.B.M. (Condition Based Management) schemes. We don’t see these terms bandied about much anymore, but we yet tend to feel some guilt and lack of thrift if we haven’t implemented these systems.

It was always apparent, even to us unsophisticated DOUGs that for acronym-based maintenance to be effective, one would incur a large data handling and computational overhead, as well as a need for very sophisticated help to analyze the accumulated data. There also seems to be some truth to the DOUG suspicion that the complex and highly interacting and circumstantial upstream and downstream environments in which substation equipment lives and dies makes recognizable precursors to failure less recognizable and predictive than in the industries that fostered RCM and CBM.

The fundamental realization that seems to have negated the need to employ such needlessly sophisticated tools stems from the requirement for regular, in-depth, and consistent inspections of the substation equipment for the RCM and CBM programs to work. It has been observed that the inspection component alone seems to work as well as the full-blown system. I suggest that this is because the human brain is a pattern recognition machine far superior to any present-day silicon system. There is a growing recognition that effective man-machine interaction occurs when each half of the overall process is focused on what it does best.

EET&D : Do you suggest a particular method when selecting a system?

Singh : The utility should always consider the following:

• How was the system created?
• Who played the key roles in the design and development of the system?

The system should be a complete substation-centric asset management system, not just an add-on or a distilled down sub-system of some larger application. Further, it should not be piggy-backed onto an existing product by the vendor.

Substation engineers along with software developers with extensive knowledge in the field of electric power delivery are truly the professionals most qualified to design a system that meets the needs of the substation inspectors and managers. The most reliable and efficient system would be the one that is jointly designed and developed by experienced software engineers, electrical utility managers, and experienced technical inspectors.

Evans : For the human, that skill set is multi-mode sensing and pattern recognition; for the computer it lies in recording, storing, retrieving, and presenting the information needed to support the human half. If we create a computer tool that facilitates the above data handling tasks to allow the human end of the partnership to practice its unconscious pattern recognition wizardry, we can then easily implement a periodic inspection program. This can simply, cheaply, and nonetheless effectively guide people to deploy the full array of senses to equipment specifics at appropriate times to feel out the underlying patterns that suggest problems.

A software tool that enables an enlightened and human-centric inspection plan thus allows an easily implementable means to assuage any guilt we might be feeling as a DOUG in being unable to have what we might have previously been led to believe is best practice for substation maintenance planning. If we are able, using easily-administered routine inspections to achieve credible results without the need for NASA-level resources, there is no rationale for guilt in opting for the simple over the arcane.

Even more significantly, the availability of a simple and easily administered software tool to organize and guide personnel through a competent inspection process allows DOUGs to shed another prominent source of guilt. A Utility that does not perform any type of proactive inspection and pre-failure maintenance is often viewed poorly by insurers, regulators, its customers, and by the public, and creates discomfort for said DOUGs. The lack of a systematic program to make itself aware of the status of substation equipment and facilities can be seen as irresponsible and can drive liability and judgment issues for that utility.

EET&D : Do you need to seek out a particular type of system?

Singh : You should determine if the system was developed specifically for the Electric Power Delivery Industry.

Creating a software solution for one industry based on a design pattern from another industry often misses the mark. For example, a system that was originally developed for the Oil & Gas industry may not accommodate the different terminologies, inspection questions, frequency of inspections, types of work orders, NERC and other regulatory requirements, cyber security, and proper nameplate data fields for T&D types of equipment. Further, to fit your operation, the software should be user configurable and customizable without vendor participation. If the system advertises to work equally well for multiple industries, be skeptical.

EET&D : How in-depth must the utility’s investigation be?

Singh : The major question to ask is, “Does the system fit your substation and distribution operations?”

The purpose of performing substation inspections is to increase asset reliability, reduce cost of repairs, and improve safety of personnel and property. The system should allow users to realize such benefits by performing prompted, scheduled, unscheduled, and Work Order-based maintenance in both energized and de-energized states. Both supervisors and inspectors should be able to easily retrieve desired inspection records for any of their substations, inspectors, and time periods using pre-defined reports or dashboards that can be used to support regulatory audits, substation health, and other operational metrics.

The system must maintain a high degree of integrity by keeping all its data, inspection records, test information, manuals, drawings, and pertinent notes at one location, which is accessible from anywhere, at any time from a device that is easy to use by inspectors. 

EET&D : There must be explicit questions to ask.

Singh : Certainly one of the first parameters to determine is if the system is scalable and extensible for your size operation?

Every utility is different, each with its own unique policies, schedules, and asset management terminologies, and regulatory requirements. There are no one-size-that-fits-all systems. Make sure the inspection software will scale to accommodate your utility’s specific requirements and terminologies without additional costs.

Depending on the geographic area of your operation, you may not have internet accessibility at or near some of the substations. To avoid any paper-based dual data collection, make sure the inspection system can operate in off-line mode and sync up instantly with the main data when the inspector returns to an internet zone.

EET&D : Given the desirability to have software to guide people through substation (or any other equipment or facilities, for that matter) inspections, what core attributes should that software possess?

Evans : I would suggest that the inspection tool should:

• Be capable of displaying the specific questions that are to be answered for a given type and or instance of equipment
   
• Allow different inspection frequencies and offsets to be able to spread out less common and or more time-consuming tasks over several inspection cycles
   
• Be editable so that questions can be customized for specific equipment instances
   
• Explicitly list each location, equipment item, and question to be inspected
   
• Provide a verification of when and who each question was answered, and to create an indelible and attestable record of the inspection results which can be supplied to regulators or litigators if so required
   
• Provide a standardized but nonetheless editable list of answers to ease sorting and finding results
   
• Permit recording specific answers, numbers, or comments as needed
   
• Be easily modified as equipment is added or changed
   
• Provide adequate question specificity to allow non-specialists to understand and answer questions
   
• Provide a checklist for all inspection items that are to be examined in a given interval, and provide visual feedback to the user as to which substations, equipment items, or detail questions remain to be addressed
   
• Be able to automatically create inspection plans for a given instance that include all inspections needed in that interval
   
• Run on hand-held devices within the substation to eliminate paper notes and subsequent transfer to file
   
• Provide data sorting, viewing, displaying, reporting, and exporting facilities so that generated records are widely available and usable
   
• Provide the inspector ready access to previous recorded results to facilitate on-site pattern-recognition
   

EET&D : Your job doesn’t end after the initial sale and installation are made. Where do you go from there?

Singh : Next to determining what system will suit your needs best, the most important thing to know is what type of customer support the software vendor can provide.

The vendor must offer customer support during the hours of your operation. Make sure that support team has software professionals who have the domain knowledge of substation inspections, regulatory requirements, and its major maintenance operations.

Be sure to ask for references and ask how many utilities are currently using the vendor’s system. Check multiple references to see how satisfied others are with the product and with the customer service. If there is any hesitation about providing references, look elsewhere.

Evans : Many other desirable features can be added to this list; it would be nice to be able to store equipment-related documents and photos, to be able to back up the questions with explanations or instructions where needed, to be able to create follow-up work ticklers, or to automatically send e-mails for worrisome results, and so on.

These basic needs define a software tool that can be organized to prompt inspectors to perform inspections of specified locations and equipment, and to answer defined questions when doing so. The tool must be infinitely flexible, but yet must present inspection tasks and result in a standardized way. As an example, power transformers may be an equipment type that offers a list of a couple of dozen questions; not all will apply to all units however. If a standard question asks the inspector to look over the oil pump, and the particular unit doesn’t have one, we would be in jeopardy of our field inspectors accusing us of being DOUGs. So we need to be able to start with a comprehensive question list, and whittle down to those appropriate to the given instance.

The inspection plan must be detailed enough that any item which is to be inspected is explicitly listed; to be able to attest that an item was in fact inspected it must be named along with the questions asked about that item. There are obviously many items that make up a substation, but because many of these items can be included in the equipment types, it isn’t necessary to laboriously enumerate each item. Going back to our power transformer example, if we want the high and low side bushing oil levels to be checked, we can include it as a specific question for the power transformer equipment type, and every time a transformer is listed, the bushing oil level question will follow.

EET&D : Are there any pitfalls to watch out for?

Evans : One constant constraint in attempting to sort any human-derived data set is that different people answer the same question with different terminology. If one asks about the condition of a transformer control cabinet, one may say ‘OK,’ the next ‘Good,’ and the next ‘Okay.’ These answers are difficult to parse and compare. The software tool described should have a standardized answer list from which selected answers to a specific question are in a drop-down list. The control cabinet answers may thus be constrained to ‘Good,’ Bad,’ or ‘Out of Service.’ Comments can amplify the meaning of answers, but the answers will nonetheless be sortable.

Singh : Editing questions and answers to become specific and direct provides a profound corollary benefit: Once the question is clearly written out, it becomes understandable enough that workers other than trained and specialized substation folks can understand and reliably answer the inspection questions. Utilities that make use of non-specialized personnel to perform substation inspections will find that the explicit questions and the comprehensive list of targets to inspect allow the inspection software tool to perform much of the guidance and training needed to obtain a competent inspection. It is important to understand that the forced brevity required of printed inspection forms and checklists precludes the level of detail needed to provide this guidance.

EET&D : Once installed, how complex do inspections become?

Singh : Not every component of a substation requires the same frequency of inspection. Equipment with a major impact on customer service such as line relays or high capital cost such as transformers warrant more frequent checks than do relatively slow deteriorating items such as paint on junction boxes or cabinets. Public responsibility items like walking the fence line looking for gaps for kids to crawl under or for detached ground wires are not generally an every-session inspection, but nonetheless it is vital to ensure that this task does get done. The software tool must be capable of having selectable inspection frequencies so that it doesn’t become expedient to inspect every single thing every single time just to ensure that the low-frequency items don’t get skipped.

Evans : Without prompting, humans fall into a routine. An individual sent out to perform a substation inspection without effective on-site guidance will sense a few things, record a few things, and then move on. To make use of the innate pattern-recognition abilities of the human processing system, the inspector needs to be reminded to look at and become aware of as much of the environment as possible. We may no longer (or at least usually) be using this talent to look for sabre-toothed tigers in the weeds, but it is the same set of abilities at work. By using a software tool to prompt the user to look at the many and varied inspection points we’ve noted, we hope to more fully engage the inspector with the environment of that substation, and better sense the sabre-toothed LTC failures lurking therein.

Because innate pattern-recognition is subconscious and inexplicable to the conscious mind, the awareness that something isn’t quite right arrives as a feeling, not as a self-evident fact. For this reason, the ability to display equipment historical records is important. If we feel that something is odd, the impulse is to seek information that supports or refutes that interpretation. If it is difficult or awkward to back up that gut feeling we tend to ignore the feeling, thus possibly missing the opportunity to avoid a major failure. This is the downfall of all paper-based inspection systems; it is too unwieldy to gain any benefit from on-site pattern-recognition. It may be possible to later find what was missed, but it is unlikely to help identify the issue in advance.

I came into the substation engineering field with an expectation that to be truly professional and responsible I would need to implement a comprehensive RCM system. I’ve since then come to believe that comparable results are obtainable with a vastly simpler, less costly, and more easily managed periodic inspection program. And guess what... I feel no guilt about it.

EET&D : Having both of you in the same spot at the same time has been extraordinary and I know our readers are going to benefit from the wisdom of each of you. On behalf of the magazine I thank you for finding the time in, what I’m sure is, a crazy schedule to share such in-depth knowledge combined with a little ‘tongue-in-cheek’ on such a key area of the electric utility industry.

About the Authors

Dr. Nand Singh has more than 30 years of experience in executive management and serial entrepreneurship in information technology industry. Prior to founding MinMax Technologies in 2007, he co-founded BEST Systems in 1994. The company was cited in several case studies from Microsoft for building multiple specialized custom software solutions on the Microsoft platform for key industry leaders.

From 1985 to 1994, he was the director of Technology Transfer for Power Computing Company where he directed commercialization, distribution, and support of more than 150 electric utility software products to serve over 500 electric utilities globally. He was responsible for the operation of Electric Power Software Center (EPSC) for EPRI where he supervised the EPRI technology transfer to its member utilities. A champion of best practices based on ISO 9001 and CMM methodologies, Dr. Singh helped EPRI promote a uniform process called SIMPLE (Software Implementation for EPRI) among its software vendors. While working with the leading power delivery consultants to EPRI, he was the principal investigator and designer for the first Substation Inspection and Maintenance Software initiated by EPRI for all its member utilities.

Dr. Singh is also an adjunct faculty member at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas where he teaches Strategy Engineering, Decision Support Systems, and Program & Project Management. He serves on the Distinguished Advisory Council of the Engineering Management and Information Systems at SMU and the Advisory Board of the Asian Studies at SMU Dedman College of Humanities and Science.

An alumnus of IIT-Bombay, Dr. Singh received his MS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, and his MS, MBA, and Doctorate of Engineering from the SMU. He can be reached at nand.singh@minmaxtech.com

Doug Evans is the electrical engineer with the City of Weatherford and has been instrumental in helping MinMax launch SMART. He brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge about substation assets and their operation. His organization is the early adopter of SMART and has been using it for well over 2 years now. Reach him at devans@weatherfordtx.gov