Electirc Utility AMIFM and the Internet
Proiect Management
Today, AMIFM systems contain a sophisticated and highly integrated electrical distribution
facilities plant model that potentially impacts all electrical distribution employees doing tasks
related to equipment from the substation fence to the customer meter. This includes marketing,
rates, income and property taxes, billing, asset management, design, preventive maintenance,
emergency repairs, claims, customer service, system planning, feeder circuit analysis, retail
wheeling, etc. A project that is so pervasive is not easy to explain to executives, managers, and
the users of the system. A Web site has been established for the AM/FM project at PGE to
address some of these project communication issues.
Project definition is addressed in terms of vision, scope, deliverables, and project profile. Project
management is addressed in terms of budget, team, schedule and status. Project build
information includes technology, tools, procedures, and issues list. Client-deliverable
information includes information about coming events, user groups, map viewing, and a fact
sheet. The accessibility of this information to all PGE employees is expected to provide two
significant advantages over traditional project communication. First, it allows each person to
pick and choose what they want to learn about the project. Second, it increases the team’s
awareness of the importance of quality documentation.
On-line Documentation of Systems and Administrative Procedures
Attending AM/FM International conferences and vendor user groups raised PGE’s awareness of
daily operational problems typically encountered when implementing a new AM/FM system.
Many of the client/server technologies associated with these projects are not in a stable,
production-type environment at most utilities. Many quality assurance procedures that provide a
stable mainframe computing environment do not exist in the client-server environment. The
complexity of doing software configuration management for a client-server application makes
PGE’s stable mainframe look rather simple. That mainframe stability took the industry more
than 20 years to achieve and many of us are just rolling out our first few clientherver
applications. Leading vendors are addressing these problems and providing rapidly improving
tools. Our challenge at PGE is to get these tools into a production type mode before our
applications are implemented. Users will not have a lot of patience for long delays in doing
production work while waiting for small application changes.
PGE’s approach has been to put the planned production clientkerver procedures into place at the
beginning of the Detail Design Phase. This will allow the development team to have over a year
to work out any kinks before the users see the implementation. These procedures are being put
on an Intranet AM/FM Project Web site so the latest version is always available to all impacted
people. The only procedures that need to be in hard copy form are the restore procedures to get
the Intranet Web server and AM/FM Web site up and running. The first documents to be Web
enabled were the server design specification, the restore and backup procedures for the AM/FM
servers, and the process flow of the development, test, production, and backup Web sites.
Map and Facilities Viewing
PGE has had more than 100 users in regional offices with ad hoc map viewing capabilities since
earl y 1996. A few field users have all 6,500 maps on a notebook PC for the same type of
viewing. This has been very successful in reducing the need for paper maps and giving people
better access to up-to-date facilities maps. Tools that perform this function range in cost from
$200-$800 per user. PGE has about 5-10 users in regional offices with specific map viewing
capabilities customized for outage restoration dispatching. This is helping direct field crews to
cutout fuses where there is no other location information except the facilities map. Being able to
reference a commercial map book grid location and fax a PGE facilities map helps a field crew
locate the device causing a power interruption. This function can be accomplished by the same
$200-$800 per user tools with minimal customization.
The outage restoration dispatch group has a need for a facilities database query to complement
the map viewing. The tool they are using has this capability, but the database is not in an
accessible state. The AM/FM project is providing a rather complete facilities database for their
use. The cost of customization will vary by tool, based on how well it aligns with the AM/FM
graphics and database formats. Tools with the Microsoft Visual Basic capabilities will be the
easiest to customize.
The more casual 100 viewers also have a mainframe tool for ad hoc facilities query. The
preference is to have the same map viewing tool capable of database queries. The cost of the
required software enhancements and user training may exceed the cost of the vendor tools.
PGE, like most companies, is giving all PC users access to both Internet and Intranet Web sites.
If maps can be accessed via these browsers, then the incremental cost per user of workstation
software drops to zero. We must find ways to leverage our applications with this new
functionality. Software costs and user training costs should both be significantly reduced.
PGE has taken the approach of designing a single set of graphic mapping files and facilities
database files that can be used with at least one tool in each of the above categories. Users are
expected to have access to all three tools and their use will drive the need to purchase licenses of
each. The same files that are accessed for map and facilities viewing with a tool that supports
Visual Basic customization will be accessible via Web browser software. This access will be via
a PGE Intranet Web server. PGE currently sells copies of their maps to customers interested in
land and facilities maps. A large component of this cost is based on the internal cost to copy and
mail a map. Once electronic commerce is more widely accepted, these maps will be copied to an
Internet Web server for on-line marketing. In some cases the customer value will increase while
the PGE cost is decreased. That should translate to better customer service at a higher profit
margin.
AIvUFM Armlication HELP Screens (facilities)
AM/FM project success is closely tied to the graphics nature of the way people interact with the
system. All users are expecting more graphics presentations of information. Field personnel
relate better to pictures than to text. AM/FM applications allow companies to make a major
transformation from textual to graphical information presentations. This transformation should
include HELP screen facilities. Vendor application-specific HELP screens are usually related to
very specific rules and application syntax. Company-specific HELP screens usually relate to
more general business rules. These two types of HELP screens need to be separated to take the
best advantage of each. Vendor application-specific HELP screens should not be modified by the
company who purchases the application. One can try to pursuade a vendor to change these, but
should not take this on unilaterally. Being able to install vendor-provided software upgrades and
help screens without application-specific changes are critical to the long term success of an
AM/FM system and preservation of the large system investment. A company should only change
this type of HELP facility if it is clearly table driven and guaranteed by the vendor to stay stable.
Company-specific HELP screen requirements lend themselves to the graphics capabilities found
with Internet related technologies. Many business rules being enforced by an AM/FM design
system relate to physical and electrical constraints and are not well known by many office people.
Many textual HELP screens just tell the user that they violated some obscure rule and to correct
their error. PGE is planning to use graphical depictions of the rules violations. Cartoon-type
pictures may be an excellent way to define a rule violation, educate the person, and not setup an
adversarial relationship between the user and the system. An example would be to show a
transformer being taken down by a crew while the service conductors are still attached, as a way
to indicate that customer accounts need to be removed from the transformer before shipping it to
a shop.
Summary
Whatever else is said about Internet, Intranet, and Web technologies, it is clear they will be an
integral part of everyone’s information system plans in the future. This is evident not because it
is the best technology, not even because it provides the best value or that it is something new.
What is new is the recognition that everyone else is using it and that it has reached critical mass
where it can now be labeled “mainstream.” Just as COBOL, FORTRAN and MVS were
“mainstream” in the 70s and Windows or Unix with C or Basic were “mainstream” in the 80s.
Web technology will be proven as the communications technology in the 90s. AM/FM systems
will not be replaced by this technology; they will be augmented and maybe even discovered.
