But Will it Sell in Poughkeepsie?

Introduction

A Changing Energy Environment
Northern States Power Company (NSP), headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a major U.S. utility with growing domestic and international nonregulated operations. NSP and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Northern States Power Company—Wisconsin, operate generation, transmission, and distribution facilities providing electricity to millions of customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, and Michigan. The two companies also distribute natural gas to customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Michigan, and provide a variety of energy-related services throughout their service areas. NSP serves economically strong and diverse communities that require reliable, competitively priced, and environmentally sound energy.

Deregulation in the energy industry is increasing competition among providers across the country. The restructuring of the industry is sending all of the players scrambling to maintain their market share and competitive edge in their service territories. At NSP, much of this effort has come in the form of streamlined work processes, aided by the development of updated information technology. To provide better customer service, NSP has produced a new Customer Service System, a Work Management System, and a Geographic Information System (GIS).

GIS - Winning With Technology
The process of developing GIS at NSP began in 1991, and system development and data conversion will continue through the first half of 1999. By November of 1997, GIS has been implemented for about 30 users. Data conversion is complete for an area of over 870 square miles (encompassing nearly 5,000 map sheets), mostly in the area north and east of St. Paul. When the current phase is complete, GIS will span 43 counties in Minnesota, covering over 5,200 square miles and over 31,200 maps. It will serve approximately 340 users. 1.5 million customer addresses will be listed, and more than 40 million features will be mapped. NSP’S GIS will standardize and computerize the thousands of paper maps and other pieces of information used every day by designer, engineers, work crew chiefs, facility locators, and others. NSP expects that it’s new GIS will provide several competitive advantages:

Improved customer service
Increased productivity
Faster, more accurate map updates
Improved access to information about NSP’S facilities in the field