Savannah electric - Fast track OMS implementation from a mature GIS
Starting the savannah electric OMS project
Savannah Electric had the desire to implement a new OMS in a short period of time. The plan was to
implement, rollout, and gain the benefits of a graphical OMS in less than one year. The primary reason
for the speedy implementation path was because our previous OMS was not millennium compliant, and
resided on a mainframe that was not millennium compliant and which Savannah Electric did not wish to
continue to use.
Savannah Electric had two significant relationships to draw on to support a quick implementation. First,
two of its sister utilities had been working on an OMS implementation for an extended period of time.
Much of the base functionality and required interfaces were either designed or implemented. Second, the
selected OMS vendor had a functionally rich system and a growing installed customer base.
Major milestones to the Savannah Electric OMS implementation included:
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GIS Interface Implementation and GIS/OMS Model Clean Up and True Up
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OMS User Environment Implementation
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Customer Information Systems Integration
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User Training and preparation for Production
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On Line Production
The GIS to OMS interface
The GIS information is fundamental to the OMS. The GIS is the source for
- The geographic presentation of information,
- The facility model including object definition and connectivity, and
- The integration information for other systems including the customer information system
(CSS).
The GIS is the maintenance source for this information. The OMS depends on the GIS for this
information. After initially loading this information into the OMS, the information must be incrementally
imported into the online OMS as the GIS is updated. This is called the Model Build process.
The implementation of this interface included four major efforts:
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Model Specification
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Model Extraction
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DS/0 and DS/1 Configuration
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Model Interface Delivery and Rollout
Model Specification
The model specification process was a learning experience for both the Savannah Electric staff and the
OMS members of the model interface project team. The following steps were followed to develop the
model interface specification:
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Establish an understanding of the base OMS operations model and its user environments
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Compile a set of specifications on Savannah Electric information sources (SEGIS, CSS)
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Merge the standard OMS operations model structure and the Savannah Electric information
sources into a Savannah Electric specific operations model supporting the needs of the operation
staff.
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Generate an interface specification to support the building and maintaining of an OMS operations
model.
It should be obvious that to make this process successful, four groups of people had to be involved: the
OMS implementation engineers, customer information source application programmers, GIS application
programmers, and operations staff.
To gain a good understanding of the OMS operations model and its user environments, the model
interface team had access to demonstration systems, formal OMS training courses, and OMS staff.
Compiling a set of specifications on the SEGIS and CSS systems was easy. Both systems had been fully
documented.
The next stage of the process required merging the CES operations model and the customer information
sources into a project operations model. Alabama Power and Gulf Power had already done much of this
work, so Savannah Electric just needed to fine-tune it for it's specific work practices. Much of the
symbology work had also been standardized, but some fine-tuning for scale differences was required.
Upon completion of the above three activities, the interface team documented the interface specification.
Once the model interface specification was complete, the formal model interface configuration
commenced.
