The middle age crises

Abstract
FirstEnergy (FE) Experiences in the Transition from Development to Production. As the AM/FM project at FirstEnergy continues and the number of users and amount of data increase, the focus of effort necessarily begins to shift from conversion and development to support and maintenance. During this shift it is important to balance the resources of the project to maintain the conversion effort while providing for support requirements of the growing user population. Application development must also continue to provide the tools necessary for the efficient maintenance of the rapidly expanding database. This paper will discuss both the issues FE had planned for and the unforeseen issues FE encountered while changing the way GIS is thought of from a development and conversion effort to an enterprise solution. We will then generally discuss the solutions we have implemented or plan to implement as well as alternate solutions.

Introduction
FirstEnergy . is an electricity provider for more than 2.1 million customers over 13,500 square miles of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. This company is a result of the recent merger of Centerior Energy and Ohio Edison Company. To streamline operations and improve customer service, Ohio Edison started development of a fully integrated AM/FM/GIS application in 1992. The intention of the project was to develop a system that would capture the benefits of automation for the operations areas of the company. The goal was to provide access to all pertinent company data within one system to improve customer service and operations effectiveness.

Like all utilities in this climate of deregulation, FirstEnergy is under going intense change. Their goal of becoming the best performing electric company in the region is driving this change at an even greater pace. Development of any system in this environment is a challenge. Developing a system like AM/FM/GIS, which affects many operational areas and corporate departments over a period of several years, presents challenges that require a very effective plan and hard work to overcome. FirstEnergy began its project with a very solid plan and has worked to follow it while adapting to changes from outside the project and unforeseen difficulties.