ERP, WMS, GIS: Who Controls the Work Order?

Introduction
The Work Order business process is the dominant procedure for Utilities to manage and maintain their assets. As companies automate this process they find there are many software offerings requiring interoperability to maximize benefits and improve this process. Predominately GIS, work management (WMS), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems play a significant role in this process improvement. Each of these systems has their specific fi.mctionality and focus, which assembled as a whole creates a highly productive workflow. In addition, the Work Order process may be integrated with other operational systems such as Outage Management and Computer Aided Dispatch to further automate an organization from the office to the field.

The Business Process
Very simply the Work Order encompasses an initiate, design, schedule, build, and close activity as shown below. These basic activities can generically be applied to many industries involved in managing assets. However, in a Utility’s process there are additional complexities such as:

graphic (map) and database change management
jobs spanning a long duration (long term transactions)
a process that must adhere to sound engineering and company standards
field assignment for job completion
a life-cycle involving many discrete groups with various skill sets
an urgency to complete jobs during storm conditions and equipment failure
continue update of a corporate database available to the enterprise.