Tricks of the Trade

Introduction
By the end of the 19th century the availability of electricity, gas and water from public utilities was a privilege for few in the urban areas in the prosperous parts of the world. Now we regard these utilities as ordinary facilities that should be available to everyone. During the last decades, the use of computers in the operation and control of utility networks has become standard. Many major utilities around the world have the information that is required to operate their networks available in digital form and depend on it for their services. Where utilities in the past often enjoyed the luxury of a de facto monopoly, they now are confronted with competition. This requires focus on customers and efficient operation. The availability of digital information about the utilities’ key assets, their networks, facilitates the integration of new techniques that will give them the competitive edge.

To that end, a group of new techniques is available that originates from within Operations Research (0.R.). This paper will discuss the general background of O.R. and indicate applications for the utility industry. It will expand on the use of O.R. techniques for the design of networks and indicate the major requirements on the GIS systems and applications that are used in our industry.