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Operations Management via the Web: PacifiCorp’s Operations Visualization System Puts Facilities Maps on the Web
Bill Cunningham, PacifiCorp
Philip A. Naecker, Gatekeeper Systems
Philip A. Naecker, Gatekeeper Systems
Introduction
PacifiCorp is one of the West’s largest utilities, with a six-state electricity service area consisting of both urban and rural regions. In the Fall of 1997, PacifiCorp was in the midst of a major reorganization of distribution management personnel, consolidating the trouble-call input and management fimction from nearly 100 district offices into two call centers. As the call centers and dispatch managers became more removed from the local dispatch operations and field personnel, a system for distributing trouble call and related information to local workers became a critical missing component. The Company had recently started using a new automated Distribution Management System, but that system was not designed to be installed on hundreds of desktops over low-speed communications lines. Even so, the re-deployment of dispatch centers was underway and could not be delayed while technical support managers searched for a method to distribute trouble-call data to remote field locations.
PacifiCorp’s Operations Support management responded to the urgent requirement with an extremely aggressive project to deploy operations, customer, and outage data to every desktop in the company. The chosen strategy was to use very lightweight and easy-to-deploy Web-based tools, delivering active maps and dynamic access to time-critical operations data to any company desktop that supported an Internet browser and minimal connectivity to the corporate Intranet (Figure 1). The team also decided that they wanted to make the map a key element of the interface to the data, allowing users of the system to navigate through the map, thematically display trouble call information on the map, and tightly couple the map to the tabular data in the application to
Figure 1 – A Web browser-based user interface was chosen, using a map as the principal user interface element. The map is drawn by a Web-browser plugin, Autodesk MapGuide.
The team realized that the new system could not follow the approach of many traditional GIS systems. Although GIS data and thematic maps would be a key element of the new system, the system could not become a “GIS System” with the typical licensing, training, complex GIS functions, and development times of such systems. Instead, the system focus would remain on deploying tabular data and spatial data with a map-based interface that would be as easy-to-use an interface as could be devised. Also, it was critical that the system deliver absolutely superior performance; slow response times typical of so many GIS systems could not be tolerated in this application.
To display maps in the Web browser, the team chose the MapGuide product from Autodesk. MapGuide was selected because of the ease of integrating data from multiple sources, the good performance of the product, and the advantages of a vector-based display. In MapGuide, maps are not just “pictures”, but consist of live objects that the user can select and can be acted on under the control of a Java program running in the Browser.
Instead of a traditional IT development strategy involving complex requirements gathering and analysis, project managers decided on an incremental development approach. The incremental approach leveraged the power of the World Wide Web to provide access to the system while it was still in development. The first version of the system was available for evaluation just six weeks after the project began, and users were given direct input to the development team. As the development progressed, users were able to comment on new features the same day they were rolled out, giving excellent responses to the developments to guide the next week’s activities. The features developed were not based on an abstract set of requirements, but on concrete data availability and the feedback of the test user group.
Responding To An Urgent Need
The governing requirement of the new system was rapid deployment of the system to users at remote locations around the company. The re-organization of dispatch operations was moving forward quickly, and Operations Support needed to respond promptly to their need for highperformance access to operations data, especially trouble-call data. Although originally conceived as an Outage Visualization System, it quickly became clear that information beyond outage reports was also required to address the true needs of the users, and the system was soon re-targeted as an Operations Visualization System including detailed facilities information, customer data, and service area analysis capability.
The OVS system also faced a number of other challenging technical requirements:
- The system had to be extremely easy to deploy to a new desktop. Many of the users of the new system have no local technical support staff, and the system is installed on desktops that are shared with many other applications. Users must also be able to install the system on their home computer.
- The system had to operate satisfactorily over even low-speed connections. The OVS system works well over the 56kb leased lines available to many outlying locations, and is usable even over dialup connections. Operations and dispatch personnel can dial into the company network from home and display maps and reports just as if they were sitting at their desk.
- . Trouble call reports alone are not enough to resolve a customer’s problem, and logs of trouble calls need to be enhanced by combining them with circuit information, detailed customer information, and easy-to-navigate maps of service areas. PacifiCorp uses a five-level hierarchy of service areas (area, district, substation, circuit, sub-circuit), and different operations personnel are responsible at geographic levels. Some users need a broad area view, while others are responsible at the substation level or finer.
- It was also critical that the new Operations Visualization System have an absolutely minimal impact on the performance of the Dispatch Management System that is capturing and tracking trouble calls and dispatcher responses to those calls. Because of the potentially huge number of users of OVS during critical outage, operations managers were concerned that OVS activity not impact the ability of the DMS to capture and organize trouble call information being used by central dispatch personnel.
The development team responded to the above challenges by building a Web browser-based system that could be rapidly deployed and incrementally improved with minimal desktop intervention or user support.
The OVS system requires a simple Web browser with Internet access and a five-minute installation procedure to install the map viewer plugin. The latest version of the system (under development as of this writing) will self-install the application user interface and map viewer in either Netscape or Internet Explorer, even further lowering the deployment barriers.
Streamlined Training and Support
Because the OVS system uses a simple Web-browser interface, training requirements are minimal for users with Web experience or even minimal experience using a graphical user interface and mouse. The system uses tooltips (small labels that pop up over the mouse when a user points at an object) and responds to double-click actions by displaying basic reports on the clicked object. Help screens are available for most screens within the application, and the help is itself “clickable”, enhancing the online training experience.
Many of the support questions about OVS are really questions about the outage and customer data in the system. The same support team that handles questions about the Dispatch Management System also supports OVS. This results in a single point of contact for questions about trouble calls and related data, and aids the user in transplanting their DMS knowledge to the OVS environment.
Data Sources Chosen for Rapid Deployment
To speed the deployment of the system, the developers chose a commercial street network and GIS dataset from Geographic Data Technologies. The purchased data includes political boundaries, landmarks, waterways and water bodies, and other features that aid in navigation [Figure 2]. While not as accurate as the company’s own landbase, the commercial data could be acquired very quickly, and was available across all service areas.
Figure 2 – A commercial street network and GIS dataset provided complete coverage of the company’s very large service area.
It is critical that dis~atchers and front-line field personnel be able to visualize outages and customer . services at specific locations on the map. for the time being, the services are displayed at geocoded locations based on the commercial street network and commercial batch-oriented geocoding software. Trouble calls are then shown at those geocoded service locations [Figure 3]. In the future, the company plans to geolocate all customer service locations and integrate geocoding directly into the OVS application.
Facilities data was available from multiple sources within the Company, at various degrees of completeness and various accuracies. The initial deployment used the most readily available data sources, which were not necessarily the most accurate. Approximately located feeder circuits for the entire system were available from an engineering model, providing an adequate representation of the most critical facilities while more accurate data was being developed. Over time, additional sources of facilities data are being integrated into the system (Figure 4), including very accurate data from the Operations Mapping System (OMS), an AutoCAD Map-based application that is capturing all of the data from the Company’s detailed facilities maps. Over time, landbase data from OMS will also be integrated into the OVS system as well, providing a much more accurate source of street centerlines and service locations.
Figure 3 – Geocoded customer service locations provide the basis for thematic display of trouble calls. An approximate feeder circuit network is also overlaid on a commercial street network.
Trouble call information from the Dispatch Management System (DMS) database is retrieved every few minutes (the exact interval is configurable) and stored in the OVS database. In this way, trouble-call queries by OVS users put no additional load on the DMS system. This approach also allows OVS to display outage and operations data from multiple trouble call and dispatch management systems with a consistent user interface and a coherent data and mapping environment.
Figure 4 – Detailed facilities data is available in some areas, and incorporated into the OVS system. Over time, other data from the mapping system will also be incorporated
All of the data sources are “imported” into OVS. During the import process, the data is regularized, linked to the map, and linked to other data elements. In this way, data displayed in OVS has rich relationships to other data elements and to the map, and the data is managed independently of the source system. OVS users need not be concerned with the source of information, nor do they need to learn to use the data in the native format.
Incremental Internet-Style Release Strategy
The development of OVS has been undertaken on “internet time”, using a rapid deployment of small incremental improvements. The OVS system experienced seven levels of software release before it went into production, each providing a new set of features or enhancements. Since the first production release less than one year ago, the system has seen four major releases. Again, because of the Web-based nature of the application, the releases can incorporate new functionality without any disruption to current users or disturbance to their familiar way of doing their job. To the extent possible, new features are integrated into the system as additional data or interfaces rather than as replacements for existing features.
In addition to simplifying the development and support activities, the Internet style approach to software release results in continual visible progress to the end users, thus improving their perception of system development responsiveness.
Information Access Features of OVS
At its core, OVS is an information access and visualization tool. A few key aspects of OVS illustrate the orientation of the OVS system to data display.
- Ormnize Data the Way the User Wants It. Data in OVS is organized for a single purpose: to support the visualization of operations information. Other, original uses of the data (for example, for customer accounting or trouble call management) are subjugated to the OVS use of the data. In this way, the experience for the OVS user is of a consistent and integrated data and mapping environment that supports the goals of OVS, not the goals of the systems originating the data.
- Navigate by Text In~ut or On the Map. OVS users can “navigate”, or move around through the
maps, either by clicking on the map to “zoom in” or by filling in query forms. Many of the data
elements in OVS are linked via a Web hyperlink. For example, a user can navigate from a
customer’s account information to specific service information, and from there to a map display
showing the user’s service located on a street map and relative to other services and to company
Figure 5 – Users can navigate by clicking on the map, or via text input. Objects returned from text searches have hyperlinks to additional reports and to the map.
facilities. All of these links area single click operation. (See Figure 5.) - Summarize Information U~ the Service Area Hierarchy. PacifiCorp organizes service areas
hierarchically. The OVS system allows users to work at any single level of the hierarchy (for
example, always taking a substation view of service areas) or to navigate up and down through
service areas. Service area reports of customers and trouble calls allow single-click access up
and down the service area hierarchy. For example, a user studying trouble calls at the
substation level can easily display a map of the entire substation service area or a report on all
the customers served by the substation; or, the user can “drill down” to a circuit-level view on
either the map or in a tabular reporting interface.
Figure 6 – OVS provides summaries of electric service area status, both thematically and in linked reports.
- Selectable Obiects. Virtually every object in the map is selectable and has an associated report. The user can select an object just by clicking on it, at which point a list of available reports is displayed for the user to choose among. You can also create a report on an object simply by double-clicking on the object. You can select and report on multiple objects at once; for example, you can use the mouse to “drag a box” around several trouble calls, then retrieve a report summarizing the status of those calls.
- Downloadable Spreadsheets. One of the most popular features in OVS is the ability to create reports in a downloadable spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel format. Users can select objects in the map or from a text interface and request a spreadsheet-format report on those objects. The resulting spreadsheet can then be manipulated, graphed, sorted, and even saved for later review. Operations managers especially like the ability to capture data from OVS and work with it offline, or produce a spreadsheet of data for later analysis and to email it to colleagues during and outage.
- Printable and Pasteable Matx. All maps in OVS are full Windows MetaFile objects, which means that they can be easily imported into programs like word processors or spreadsheets. Users often make a spreadsheet report of trouble calls or electric services and then “paste in” a map that shows those locations. The maps can also be printed, with very high print quality.
The first version of the OVS system was inaugurated just before last year’s GITA conference. In the intervening months, our experience with OVS has been very encouraging. OVS has enjoyed broad and rapid acceptance among the community of dispatchers, field operations managers, and other personnel responsible for front-line customer support. The number of regular users of the system passed 480 in December of 1998, and is climbing steadily. Users of OVS are not limited to operations managers. Operating Vice Presidents and engineering department users both make considerable use of the system.
Good System Performance
The responsiveness of OVS is deemed very good by the uses. Typical user requests for new maps or new reports are displayed within three to five seconds after the request is issued. Even large requests, for example, for detailed information on hundreds of trouble calls, are typically completed within a few tens of seconds.
The OVS system also tolerates a high user load without significant response degradation. Although the system runs on only a moderately fast computer, tests with dozens of simultaneous users have shown only minor degradation in response time.
Further testing of system performance has recently been made possible by the extension of OVS to support a simultaneous test environment. The same OVS hardware and software can now support both live (production) and test (mock outage) trouble call databases. Users of the mock outage environment use the same server, the same mapping data, and the same customer information as the production system. The mock outage environment can keep the test trouble-calls separated from the actual production trouble calls, yet provides a full and thorough test of the entire server system, the links to the Dispatch Management System, the user interfaces, and the users.
The test environment is also used during training. In this mode, OVS trainers and support personnel input trouble calls in the area of responsibility for the personnel being trained, thereby enhancing the realism and depth of the training experience. This also assists the outage management personnel in testing their outage procedures.
Extending the OVS System
New features, bug fixes, and minor enhancements have been easy to add to the OVS system, and OVS users have been ready and willing to experiment with new features as soon as they appear. Again, the Internet style of application development and deployment has resulted in a rapid rollout of new features and improvements in usability.
Recently, the OVS team has begun building a link to a SCADA system that maintains realtime facilities state information to manage outages and day-to-day electric operations. The OVS system has proven very flexible in the incorporation of this new feature, and provides a powerfil and inexpensive means to deploy the SCADA data to hundreds of users without requiring expensive and difficult-to-train-for SCADA interfaces.
The OVS users decided that they needed a better view into the history of trouble calls within a service area. Responding to this request, the OVS development team created a series of Call History Reports organized around the hierarchical nature of PacifiCorp service areas. OVS users can investigate the time flow of trouble calls, generating spreadsheets or “clickable” reports showing the time history of trouble call arrival and call resolution for one or more service areas. OVS is coming to be viewed by the users as a gateway into archived trouble orders, aiding in the analysis and resolution of sources of trouble in the electrical network.
Summary
The Operations Visualization System is not a traditional GIS or AM/FM system, but instead uses an easy-to-use map interface to allow users to view and query operations and facilities data. Using a rapid development methodology and Internet tools, a powerfi,d spatially-enabled system for viewing electric utility operational data and facilities was deployed to hundreds of users in just four months. The system has minimal requirements at the desktop, needing a Web-browser and modest network bandwidth, and has thus proven quite easy to deploy. Training and support requirements have also been modest. The map viewing technology used, Autodesk MapGuide, has proven powerful and robust, and yields good performance and flexibility.
The system has enabled PacifiCorp to address customer service needs faster and continue a high quality of service with fewer staff. OVS is well situated to become a key platform to deploy operations and facilities data to every employee in the company.