GIS Helps position west OHIO company for success
Ty V. Lotz Superintendent of Engineering, West Ohio Gas Company 319 West Market Street, Lima, OH 45801 Introduction Eight months early and 10 percent under budget. Those are the vital statistics for the GIS now in operation at West Ohio Gas Company. West Ohio Gas is intent on positioning itself to grow in the increasingly competitive energy market by being more competitive and by focusing more intently on new products and services to meet customer needs. The GIS system delivered earlier in 1996 ahead of schedule and under budget will help the company do precisely that. The company is based in Lima, Ohio and has been in operation for over 100 years. West Ohio Gas has 159 employees and serves more than 60,000 customers with more than 1,200 miles of distribution lines. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Natural Gas Co. (CNG), based in Pittsburgh. West Ohio Gas is well on its way toward accomplishing its ambitious corporate objectives. Company executives estimate that on average more than 1,000 customers will be added to the system annually over the next three years. What’s more, the utility is working to expand natural gas services to no fewer than seven communities in the west central part of the state. The corporate objective is to reposition the company to flourish in the new marketplace. In doing so, the company will provide energy services to that marketplace and diversi~ outside the rate base into niches lying in and around the energy industry. The company moved to do just that by organizing itself in late 1994 into self-managed work groups. Rather than operate with layers of hierarchy, West Ohio Gas now has but two layers: A Strategy Group that identifies corporate goals, and 16 Business Groups tasked with deciding how those goals will be met. This approach increases flexibility, fosters innovation and speeds decision making, having driven decision making to “front-line” troops. As part of the company’s reorganization for growth, West Ohio is moving equally swifily to remove inefllciencies left over from the days of monopoly service territories and cost-plus ratemaking. One key element has been the utility’s commitment to deploying GIS. Only a few years ago, information about the utility’s facilities - everything fi-om pipes to meters -was kept on main line cards and services cards. While these paper records were well maintained, their sheer volume made them unworkable. What formerly was a mere inconvenience threatened to become an acute disadvantage in an increasingly competitive, post-Order 636 industry where quick and accurate answers to customer queries area minimum requirement to competitiveness. Without even a manual mapping system and saddled with difficulty in accessing and maintaining existing gas facilities records, the company launched an initiative in 1992 to procure a GIS as a strategic information system for West Ohio Gas. The Heart of a GIS GIS has gained widespread use among natural gas and other utilities in recent years. The reason is straightforward: GIS technology is used as a tool to manage spatial information about facilities; their relationship to customers, products or services that these facilities carry; and the land environments in which they operate. Seen this way, natural gas distribution networks share one thing in common with telecommunications networks, electrical distribution systems and rail systems; each has an incredible number of outside plant facilities located at specific X and Y coordinates on the earth that can be mapped. These mapped records, maintained over the past 100 years on paper, vellum or microfilm, have always been bulky, are easily disorganized, prove time-consuming to find and often are difficult to coordinate. More importantly, as an increasing number of local distribution companies, - including West Ohio Gas - have learned, paper-based systems simply cannot meet the time constraints of “what-if’ scenarios necessary for decision making in today’s competitive environment. On occasions an eight hour turnaround is needed to determine what facilities are needed to add a customer. With an old information system, West Ohio Gas couldn’t analyze facilities fast enough to know what kind of changes were needed, if any at all. This and related issues were opposite to West Ohio Gas’s growth, competitive and customer service objectives. As a result, the utility identified the corporate-wide implementation of GIS as a primary strategic objective. To help achieve its goals, West Ohio Gas hired a consultant to assist in the GIS planning, procurement and implementation effort. Identifying Objcetives During the interviews with eight senior executives and numerous potential users from seven departments, no fewer than 17 objectives for the GIS were uncovered, including serving customer needs through quicker, more accurate information; improving labor productivity, 419?morale and efficiency; improving analytical and decision-making capabilities; and improving access, accuracy, currency and availability of information to all user departments. The feasibility study revealed that developing a GIS capable of meeting these objectives would result in a better than 35 percent internal rate of return based on a three year, multi-million dollar budget and an 18-month payback following the conversion of paper mail line cards and service cards to digital format. Initiated in January 1994, a pilot GIS project was completed within six months. The second stage, fill implementation of the GIS project, was completed in January, nearly eight months ahead of its three-year schedule and 10 percent under budget. During the implementation cycle, 15 workstation-networked via Ethernet using a client server configuration were brought on line serving all 16 business groups. As part of the strategic implementation plan associated with the feasibility study, project leaders decided to leverage and enhance a previous GIS investment of another CNG system company, Peoples Natural Gas, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by upgrading the application environment from user command files (UCMS) and some FORTRAN language programs to MDL (Micro Station Development Language) and C+ programs. In addition to added I%nctionality, the GIS implemented at West Ohio Gas is now better positioned for ongoing applications development and fhture applications maintenance. The Consultant’s software engineers worked closely with Reveille Systems of Austin, Texas to implement a state-of-the-art MDL environment for West Ohio Gas’ project. Core elements of the existing GIS system were then rewritten from UCM format to MDL format. Windows interfaces provide consistent look and feel on all hardware platforms. The result is a seamless integration between the various applications through user-friendly, icon-driven interfaces with pull-down custom menus. The GIS implementation at West Ohio Gas dovetailed with a parallel corporate reorganization initiated because GIS made all relevant information readily and easily accessible by users all across the organization. This feature of GIS let the company not worry about information needs, but focus on organizing most efficiently. Meeting Department Needs West Ohio’s consultant customized many of the software applications needed to meet the utility’s specific requirements. These included applications enhancements for custom map production, job tracking, work order generation and posting, maintenance history, reporting and analysis, cathodic protection support, network analysis and regulation station information management. New applications developed include maintenance scheduling, complaint tracking, crew dispatching, state regulatory reporting, easementhight-of-way tracking, marketing, and emergency response. Interfaces were also developed to the customer information revenue system, property accounting, and pressure control analysis systems. In addition to mapping and facilities network management functions, the GIS is linked to accounting to assist with property records management. It also integrates with customer 420?information services to help personnel answering service calls provide quick answers to customer queries. Engineering and construction and maintenance functions are able to integrate the GIS with their work. In this way, as new facilities are designed these areas can immediately identifi and order needed materials. This GIS will be used by virtually every function in the company. For example, the New Customer Group will make heavy use of the GIS. When a new customer calls for service, New Customer Group personnel will be able to instantly tell customers whether or not a gas main is in the vicinity and estimate the cost to extend a service line. Future applications envision the utility taking existing customer data, loading it into a database and using the system to market more effectively. In this way, data on customer buying habits may help the utility target prospects who, for example, have gas heat but electric water heaters. End user acceptance will be a key measure of the success of this GIS. The project team focused on developing applications that are user friendly and customizing the system for various end users to increase functionality. A Tool for Improved Decision Making West Ohio Gas’ corporate intent was to put an information system in place that enables better decision making rather than one that focuses merely on increasing the efficiency of existing operations. As such, West Ohio Gas executives view the GIS not only as a strategic requirement but as an investment that is helping re-engineer a number of processes. As a key information system asset, the GIS is playing a pivotal role in enabling West Ohio Gas to change and improve processes, including decisions regarding how new customers are added, how facility information is recorded and how property accounting information is managed. We have to reduce costs to become more efficient, while simultaneously offering new services and improving customer service. GIS is helping us do this. Lessons Learned A detailed project approach and scope of work was developed. This scope included an accurate description of all applications, data conversion requirements, and hardware specifications. It is essential to avoid the temptation of expanding the scope of work through the project implementation without a thorough analysis of its impact on the project schedule and budget. This can be accomplished by significant input from end users during the initial applications development. A list of all GIS project enhancements, outside of the original scope, must be created and a priority established. All enhancements can then be subjected to a cost benefit analysis. Effective project management is crucial to a successfid GIS implementation. Essential methodology includes orientation sessions for project team member; establishing individual assignments and project control documentation requirement; developing an applications transfer documentation; detailed weekly and monthly status reports. | ||
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